Politico has recently reported that the McCain campaign spent $150,000.00 on clothes and accessories for his relatively unknown, self-proclaimed ‘soccer mom’ running mate Sarah Palin. This is an indictment of everything that is wrong with America. Palin claims to be a ‘maverick’, down to earth American woman, but she’s wearing more makeup than some circus clowns, and buying an image overhaul reportedly at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Barneys and Bloomingdales. Just to be clear, there is NO Saks 5th Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Barneys or Bloomingdales in Alaska! Next thing you know though, she’ll be claiming to see Saks from her house.
Buying new clothes to run for VP of the highest office in the land is not the issue. Spending $150 grand of campaign contributors money to re-shape and fabricate a glamorous, elite image of not only Palin, but her family members as well is the issue. Would that the makeover just stopped with a visit to Pearl Vision for some contacts to replace Palin’s trend-chasing glasses that ironically make her look like she was initially imitating Tina Fey, and not the other way around!
This revelation should make it clear to anyone who hasn’t already been keenly aware, that McCain and Palin represent the interests of Wall Street, not Main Street. More specifically, they are absolutely pining for the votes of those, ESPECIALLY WOMEN, who shop at the very same high priced expensive clothing stores.
What they forget is, mainstream American women are craving a White House that truly can RELATE with them, not one that seems ABOVE them. I’m just going to take a chance and speak for my readers here, directly to Governor Palin: “We the People expected you to be real…to be yourself. The LAST thing we want is for you to be conforming to a different image than who you were before you were tapped as the V.P. candidate on the McCain ticket!”
In a Politico article by Sarah Abuzzese, she quotes one Lauren Rothman, a Washington stylist with the fashion consulting firm “Styleauteur” saying, “She is dressing appropriately for the job she is going after.” Let me ask you a question. Do you think this Lauren Rothman ‘fashion consultant’ represents soccer moms and most down to earth women in America? The job Gov. Palin is going after is primarily to represent the masses in America who are shopping at K-mart and Target (sadly I have to include WalMart, but more and more Americans are boycotting that un-American Mom and Pop small business killer). That’s IF they aren’t shopping for clothes at GoodWill and local thrift stores because they are trying so hard to barely make their mortgage payments! So people like Ms. Rothman don’t get it! They don’t get it at all, what the highest office in the land is about.
But can you blame them when you think about how long that highest office has been abused and perverted by both parties, playing a corrupt game of serving wealthy special interests instead of serving the American people. NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, is one of the biggest examples of this. Supported by both Clinton and Bush, it has all but destroyed access to ‘free enterprise’ by the average American, and continues outsourcing and erradicating manufacturing jobs, destroying and crippling communities all across this land, after which WalMart moves in pretending to be a ‘knight in shining armour’ to provide jobs and cheap goods, undercutting the small businesses who remain in business. Walmart is able to do this ONLY because of NAFTA, primarily selling outsourced manufactured products that used to be made in America, which is how they can afford to undercut Mom and Pops and ultimately put them out of business. The American Dream is dying because of this system created by NAFTA, recent White House occupants of both parties, and the Wall Street elite.
Back to the image created with the 150 grande makeover of Palin…It primarily accomplishes the objective of symbolizing to the elite that McCain and Palin will continue serving them. I’ve thought a lot about it. If I ever run for public office, I’m going to do everything I can to relate with the common folk who are the vast majority. I am not going to pretend that I am not one of them. I would likely need to get a new wardrobe for the campaign, and oh how I’d LOVE to purchase it at Sears or J.C.Penney, maybe Macy’s… But I too, would probably end up having to spend a fortune. Only it would be to a seamstress because I am 6 feet, 3 inches tall and nothing at either Sears or Saks fits!… except for the occasional maternity outfit. Maternity clothes are comfy and underrated… but definitely not a turn on to the guys. Sometimes when I’m waiting to cross the street at an intersection wearing my floodwater pants, a motorist will hand me a dollar and ask me to promise I’ll spend it on clothes!
It is clear neither Joe the Plumber nor Jane the Teacher are represented by a V.P. candidate who spends this kind of money from political contributions on an image from Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdales. It is sad to me that there are still so many Americans who are fooled by Republicans like Palin and McCain when they say that they represent their interests, when it is SO OBVIOUS that they don’t!
Lately McCain has been trying so hard to say that ‘Joe the Plumber’ is going to benefit from his policies, but he is lying through his dentures! The small businesses like Joe the Plumber don’t make anywhere near $250,000.00 a year. Everyone making less than that is going to be RESCUED by an OBama administration. His policies are going to turn things around, give them a big tax break, and place a tax increase on the upper 5 to 10% of the extremely wealthy and corporate elite. Joe the Plumber is going to be greatly harmed by McCain’s policies, which will continue in the vein of George Bush, his father and Ronald Reagan, who believed in what they called “Trickle Down Economics”. They tax you, the hardworking Joe the Plumber, and give tax relief and tax loopholes to the elite and wealthy who contributed immensely to their campaigns. The name “Trickle Down Economics” comes from their tounge-in-cheek assertion that your benefit is the ‘trickling down’ of the $7.00 to $10.00 an hour job(s) you get to work at for the rest of your life for the elite…and sadly, that is not even a partial exaggeration of the truth.
Palin’s high priced makeover says it all…she’s a liar. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to get away with returning all the clothes the day after election day when they lose. She’d have to do it quickly in the big city before she returns home, ’cause Lord knows there probably won’t be a Bloomingdales in Alaska for a long time…even if she is kneeling in her evangelical church, crossing her fingers praying for global warming.
Remember the days of the John Edwards, $400 haircut? Most of us would have a hard time spending $150,000 for clothes. And they started the campaign accusing Obama being an “elitist.” !!!
Wow–Not only do I not have the budget for the duds, I don’t have the body– and cannot afford the accompanying trip to the plastic surgeon for a lot of liposuction and a tummy tuck. The average American woman is a size 14….who the hell can wear those size zero Dress For Success outfits, if you’re over 40?????? I’m offended at the expenditure of the $150,000 and even more so, that the image of a skinny, over-done broad, is what young girls in America are told they should be. Bah, humbug.
Great point, you are absolutely right about the message to young girls and women is a very unhealthy one…that a fake, made up image is paramount to success in America, not just being yourself. A friend heard it reported on the radio today that the highest paid employee on the McCain Campaign’s staff for October was Palin’s makeup artist who was paid $22,000.00.
I will kindly refrain from slamming her with any number of pig and lipstick joke combinations here. Image, makeup, materialistic greed all seem to go together in this Meth-Head neo-capitalist culture, and it is time for a forced rehab for America.
“sadly I have to include WalMart, but more and more Americans are boycotting that un-American Mom and Pop small business killer”
In the case of Walmart, its constant and unwavering devotion to outsourcing has allowed it to be one of the few companies to benefit even while revenues for most other companies are plummeting. There was an article in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette today saying that the sales at Walmart stores had risen by 2.4% despite all the other retailers having a dismal October.
Here’s a quote from the article:
“The 37 chain stores tracked by the trade group collectively saw a 0. 9 percent drop in sales from October 2007 in stores open at least a year, a key measure of performance in retailing. Excluding Wal-Mart, the other 36 chains saw a collective 4. 2 percent sales decline”
So either way, good times or bad, Walmart wins and we lose.
Thanks Straight Talk, Very good comment and perfect example of what is undermining The American Dream for small business owners and the low and middle class (and ironically beginning to undermine it somewhat for even some in the upper class?) This should be a bi-partisan, or rather ‘multi’ – partisian issue…but we are still having trouble getting many conservative Republicans to realize this. They wrongly think that no regulating of such conglomerate monopolies is the name of the game of Capitalism. I disagree wholeheartedly…this is not the capitalist economy model our forefathers intended.
The “High Cost of Low Price” (and outsourcing) is the loss of access by Americans to true freedom…and free enterprise for themselves and their posterity.
Connie Bryan