Healthcare for Fifteen

Yes, she needed new clothes. But did she need $150,000 of new clothes? And does she need that much new clothing? Her clothing allowance works out to over $2500 per day. PER DAY! And that's only so far.

The economy is tanking. Retired people are having to back to work, millions of people are without health insurance, millions are sliding into poverty, unemployment is going up and Sarah Palin is getting new designer clothing. The campaign says they intend for the clothes to go to a charitable cause after the election, but are they really going to Goodwill or the homeless shelter in Anchorage? Really? Let's put some GPS chips in the heels of those boots, shall we?

If she's really like us, she (or her staff) would have gone to Marshall's and TJMaxx and the sale racks at Macy's to scrounge out appropriate clothing. Or Target or Kohls or WalMart. Wouldn't it have been better to look good on a seriously tight budget, like the rest of us? What about buying carefully so that pieces can be rearranged and resused?That might have connected with real hockey moms.

Yeah, I'd love of $2500 Valentino jacket. Or to have my daughter hold my Louis Vuitton bag for me. Or to have $75000 to spend at Neiman Marcus. It would be great. I love Project Runway, but for me, as it is for most people, that level of expenditure it's total fantasy. Total.

But if I actually had $2500? It would go to something for the kids (braces, musical instruments) or house maintenance. A single item of clothing would be the last on the list.

Yes, you can argue that this is a trivial point, that there are bigger issues to dicuss (not that the McCain camp will, but there are). But I do think this is representative of some bigger issues. The GOP and the RNC are completely out of touch on what is going on out in the small towns they claim to love so much. The "real America," as they say.

"Real America" gets frustrated at the rising grocery bill while the items in the cart are shrinking in size and quantity and doesn't see the point of thousands of dollars for a jacket from a French fashion house (and wasn't it the Republicans and all the "pro-America" areas of this country who were so hot to rename fried sticks of potato "Freedom Fries" instead of "French Fries.")

And yes, I say this as part of the "intellectual elite" in the Northeast. I probably don't have a true idea of what it means to be in these struggling small towns - but I do have brains enough not to insult their intelligence by wearing boots that would feed their family for a couple or three months.

$150,000. Amazing. The yearly budget of some socal service organizations, I bet. Healthcare for fifteen. Teachers. And on and on.

And let's not get me started on Palin charging the state of Alaska for the whole family to fly and watch her husband in a snowmobile race.

If this political party can't make appropriate spending choices for the campaign, there is no way I can trust them for four years.