After reading Politico's coverage of the Sarah Palin shopping spree, I decided to calculate how long it would take me, given my shopping habits and income, to spend $150,000 on clothes. The answer was 125 years.
The Republican National Committee reportedly has spent this much on clothing and make-up for Sarah Palin in a mere two months. Wow! I mean, what was wrong with her own wardrobe? (Now I think of it, is there something deeply wrong with mine? Am I wearing entirely too little Prada? Are people talking?) On an income that outstrips that of 98 percent of Americans, one would think Palin could afford to purchase a nice suit or two in celebration of her nomination. I've seen pictures of her pre-makeover, and she looked fine. Surely, she had a few other things tucked away for important events. But this campaign, which claims to speak to small-town America and embrace small-town values, could truck no small-town wardrobe.
Think about it: $150,000 on clothes at a time when so many of us are struggling not just to make ends meet, but to stay in our homes, put food on the table, and manage shrinking household budgets. At a time when families with children constitute the fastest growing segment of the homeless population, John McCain indulges in a glaring, imperious display of wealth.
There are so many things to say. Elitism: the assumption that our leaders must appear royal, that they are entitled to the finer things most can't afford. Sexism: the stereotype of the younger mistress who is showered with expensive gifts. These two threads come together in the Palin makeover.
McCain's campaign cast Palin in the presumptuous My Fair Lady narrative it kicked off at the Republican National Convention: a rich and powerful older man invites a younger attractive woman to hitch a ride to the White House. The plot, of course, serves the man's greater goals of claiming an identification with women and small-town values. Not incidentally, the story line also offers a winking confirmation of the older man's intact virility.
But first, about those clothes.
This latest revelation signifies more than mere gossip. The excess of the expense, the overkill of the makeover, expose a disturbing aspect of the relationship between Sarah Palin and John McCain. She's the girl; he's lord of the manor. Avuncular and condescending, McCain says he's proud of Palin, and that she's his political soulmate. Can we imagine McCain making similar statements about Joe Lieberman?
Palin has seen this movie too and gamely allows her benefactor (oops, I mean running
mate) to bankroll a shopping spree of spectacular proportions. She dutifully reinvents herself as he and his political machine see fit. And this matters. Here is the rub: the McCain campaign has seen fit to reinvent Palin as the pretty young thing, the political helpmate/charity case -- and she goes merrily along.
She may be willing to play the role of VP-with-benefits, and that's her business. But her politics are our business, and as my grandmother always said, "People do what they believe in." Sarah Palin believes in the role she's playing, and clearly sees this as the appropriate role for all women. (Again: helpmate/charity case.) Disturbingly, she also believes in John McCain, his money, his misogyny and, saddest of all, his increasingly sexist opinion of her.