I know this is as old as the internet by now, but it’s still amazing:

For anyone not familiar with the Palin shopping spree story:

The Republican National Committee has reportedly spent about $150,000 on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe since she was chosen as John McCain’s running mate less than two months ago.

Alaska is a state where women are more commonly seen in Mukluk boots and heavy furs than stilettos and expensive tailored suits, but thrust into the national spotlight Mrs Palin has adopted a new look.

A self-professed adorer of high heels, she has sported a number of new styles on the campaign trail.

It looks as though Mrs Palin’s “the heels are on, the gloves are off” comment was more firmly based in reality than was previously thought.

Full Story. This started as a kind of blurb on Politico, but has been picked up by the Washington Post, the NY Times, the LA Times, CNN, and even Fox News. Not to mention thousands of other outlets. Go to Google and type: Sarah Palin $150,000. You will get over 190,000 hits.

The general theme of the articles is that her claim to being just an ordinary hockey mom doesn’t fit well with buying $150,000 worth of clothes.

Say it ain’t so, Sarah!

EDIT: Here’s the amazing photoset where this Obama picture comes from.

The photographer writes:

Senator Obama was doing press interviews by telephone in a holding room between events. Sometime later as he was getting ready to begin his event, he asked me if I was photographing his shoes. When I said yes, he told me that he had already had them resoled once since he entered the race a year earlier. Providence, R.I., 3/1/2008.

Awesome.

Oh man, Sarah Palin is comedy gold. Backstory:

Palin has granted just a handful of interviews and has appeared at times to be uninformed about national and international issues. For example, in a CBS News interview aired Wednesday she appeared unable to cite a Supreme Court decision with which she disagreed while saying many decisions had divided Americans, and could not name magazines and newspapers that she reads.

So I present the new website, Things Sarah Palin Can Name. Post topics include “Nicknames I’ve Had”, “Percentage of People Who Think Librarians Are Hot”, and “Types of Birth Control” (Abstinence, Prayer, and More Prayer.) “Causes of Global Warming: God, Polar Bears, and Fire.”

The best one by far is “Dinosaurs Jesus Rode” (She thinks humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time)

• Triceratops
• Velociraptor Velocirapture
• Jehovasaurus Rex
• Prolifeatops
• Kangaroo
• Utahraptor
• Dromiceomimus

I think she’s worried about what Gwen Ifill will ask her in tonight’s debate too. As she should be. I hope Ifill holds her feet to the fire. Palin was a hail mary by the McCain campaign. They came up short. Tonight they’ll hopefully be turning it over on downs. Nate at 538.com has great advice for Joe Biden: Let Palin do the talking. She’ll bury herself. If Ifill makes her answer questions and not cutesy out of shit. We’ll see tonight.

Oh man, she nailed it, big time. They both did, this was amazing. Very quotable.

“And your Tina Fey glasses!”

EDIT: NBC seems to be messing with the embed link. And of course it’s being yanked off youtube immediately. Here’s the link to NBC’s site, just in case.

This is a basic wrap-up of the whirlwind the GOP is going to have to reap over Palin. And a summation of the points in the image above. From Troopergate to her brief mayoral career as a book-burner. From the article:

[Former Wasilla mayor] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving “full support” to the mayor.

Man, how many amendments is that broken at once?

And there’s the pregnant daughter. Both campaigns say its an off-limits topic. Should it really be? I know it’s a personal matter but when you try to legislate morality in other people, why is what you do off limits? If you’re pro-abstinence only education, anti-birth control and your 17 year old daughter gets pregnant doesn’t that mean something? Like maybe a pro-abstinence anti-birth control mindset doesn’t work? I think we should be having discourse about this topic. How did she get pregnant? What happened?

And.. she’s not sure what a VP does. She hates Polar Bears.

And I wonder why she has been on a full media blackout for the last 9 days. The McCain campaign says she won’t speak to the media until they know she’ll be treated with “deference”. Deference defined: respectful submission or yielding. No politician should ever be treated with deference. This is not a monarchy.

This sure sounds like the behavior of a maverick. Of a pitbull with lipstick or whatever that terrible joke she told at the convention. Hey new joke: What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney? Lipstick. Zing! Or Huffington Post suggests George Bush in Lipstick.

But seriously. I’m not being extra hard on her just because she’s a Republican. This was a political pick, pure and simple. The McCain camp has spent the entire campaign calling Obama inexperienced, and they dig up the greenest Repub in the bunch. The greenest, with plenty of baggage to boot. I don’t think she’ll be moving all that into the White House. Nate at 538.com summed it up better than I: Sarah Palin Is Not a Hockey Mom. And she’s not a VP either. And think of the amazingly high chances she has of being VP if McCain is elected:

• McCain has had the most lethal form of skin cancer (malignant melanoma) four times.
• McCain smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for most of his adult life but has now quit.
• McCain’s father died at 71 and his grandfather died at 61.

I’m saying basically: McCain picked Palin to try, TRY to siphon away some female voters from Obama. And I guess it may work a little, they may pick up the completely uninformed voting female that sees another female and automatically feels some association. Or they’ll pick up the pro-life anti-enviroment pro-earmarks anti-polar bear pro-moose burger constituency. All she’s done is move their ticket farther to the right. Somehow. McCain needed to solidify his base, and maybe he’s done that. But no one would argue that Biden (and Hillary) have solidified Obama’s base. If both bases turn out in full force, Obama wins. His base is larger, and that’s that. McCain needed the middle and he’s turned away from them. He had to pull out a wild card VP to try to win this. It appears to be backfiring.

I mean, there’s a market on Intrade for “Sarah Palin to be withdrawn as Republican VP nominee/candidate before 2008 presidential election“. It’s only trading at 5.5 but peaked Sept. 3rd at 19. What’s the Biden being withdrawn market trading at? Exactly.

via electoral-vote:

Sometimes fiction is a better vehicle for getting inside someone’s mind. Besides, it’s all we have. Here is a short play for two actors. Let’s call them Schmidt, a tough, savvy consultant, and McCain, a candidate.

Schmidt: McCain, Get your ass over here and look at this map.

McCain: It’s the U.S. with the states red and blue. Seen it before. What’s your point?

Schmidt: Obama’s gonna win all the Kerry States. You have a small chance to pick off New Hampshire but 60% of the people think you’re pro choice. When they find out you’ve been pro life for 25 years, forget New Hampshire.

McCain: Where does that leave me?

Schmidt: Bush won 286 to 252.

McCain: Fine with me.

Schmidt: But wait a minute. Obama campaigned like crazy in Iowa. Won the caucuses big time. You barely set foot in the state. The people of Iowa take their caucuses very, very seriously. You insulted them. Make that 279 to 259.

McCain: I still win.

Schmidt: We’re not done yet. Obama has been leading in New Mexico all year. State’s full of Latinos. They preferred Clinton but they’re still Democrats at heart. I think we’re toast there. Now its 274 to 264.

McCain: A win is a win. Still better than Florida was.

Schmidt: Yeah, but now Obama is just 5 EVs short of a tie (which means it goes to the House and he’ll win there) and 6 EVs short of a clean win. Look, there are six swing states this time: Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, and Nevada. We have to win all six of them. Can’t lose a single state or we’re dead meat.

McCain: I’m a fighter. You know that. The gooks couldn’t break me. I’ll campaign like hell in all six. Don’t worry.

Schmidt: I’m worried. We’re 50-50 on all six. It’s like flipping a coin six times and getting six heads. One chance in 64, roughly 2%. We have to do something dramatic. Something that will throw all calculations out the window. Something that completely shakes up everything. Something that gives us a fresh start. Gotta hit the RESET button.

McCain: Have something in mind?

Schmidt: Yeah. Pick a black or a woman for Veep.

McCain: You mean I can’t pick Joe? He’s my friend and a great guy.

Schmidt: Half the convention would walk out. Besides, Jews aren’t a novelty any more. Thank Gore for that.

McCain:. Shit. But blacks are fine with me. Colin Powell is a great American and one of the most respected people in the country.

Schmidt: He doesn’t want the job

McCain: No sweat. Condi’s the smartest woman I know. Mind like a bear trap. She’ll run rings around Biden at the debate. She’ll say: “I’ve been there. I talk to Putin every week. You’re just an old windbag”

Schmidt: She’s got “BUSH III” emblazoned on her forehead. And Obama is a happily married man with two adorable little girls, Condi’s a single black woman who is apparently not much into families. Won’t work. What about Kay [Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)]?

McCain: She’s tired of the Washington rat race. She wants to go back to Texas. Be governor or something, you know like Ma Ferguson.

Schmidt: Ma’s husband, the governor, was impeached and convicted. Ann Richards would be a better role model. What other women do we have?

McCain: Jodi [Rell] and Olympia [Snowe] are smart and popular but pro choice. The Base distrusts me already. They’d mutiny.

Schmidt: Elizabeth Dole? Susan Collins?

McCain: With either of those we lose a Senate seat. I don’t want to have 60 Democrats to deal with over there. Reid might grow a spine. Can’t encourage that.

Schmidt: Lisa Murkowski?

McCain: Her dad appointed her. She won on her own later, but I don’t need to deal with nepotism and cronyism. Smells like Bush. I’m a maverick, remember?

Schmidt: Got it. Some businesswomen? Sarah Palin?

McCain: Carly [Fiorina] is great on economics, but she nearly she ran her company into the ground so the board fired her and then gave her $40 million so she wouldn’t feel bad. The 20,000 people she fired aren’t too keen on her. Meg Whitman did a fantastic job at eBay but nobody’s ever heard of her.

Schmidt: So Palin’s the only one left? What about her?

McCain: I met her once, at a governors meeting. Cute as a button. She ran for Miss Alaska. Came in second. I woulda voted for her. But it’s a real Hail Mary pass. She’s popular up north there where the sun never shines (except for some minor problems when she tried to fire her state trooper brother-in-law). She was pregnant with a Down syndrome baby and didn’t abort him. The Base will love that. Her hobbies are riding her motorcycle and hunting moose. The coal miners in Appalachia will go wild over her. How fast can we print a million 8×10 color photos of her for their lockers?

Schmidt: Fast. But what about her experience. I mean, she’s only been governor a year and a half. What did she do before that?

McCain: I think she was mayor of some village with six igloos. Who cares? I think you’re right we have to shake things up completely. Change the game. The Base will eat her up on abortion, the Hillary fans will see that we respect women (unlike their guy). We grab the mantle of reformers. The white guys will be transfixed by this hot chick who hunts moose. I get to be Maverick-in-chief. Sounds like a winner.

Schmidt: What about the debate with Biden? What if the moderator says: “What would you do if Russia invaded Georgia again?” and she says: “I’ll get on Air Force One and fly to Atlanta immediately.”

McCain: Most Americans can’t find Georgia the state on a map, let alone Georgia the country. I’ll get Lugar to tutor her on foreign policy. He knows everything about it. I’m sold. Let’s go for it.
Curtain falls.

---

Worst pick ever? Maybe. Definitely makes McCain unable to call Obama inexperienced. Two Alaska papers have questioned her readiness. She’s been the mayor of a small town and a state with 1/5 the population of Brookyln. Makes Obama look like a seasoned vet. She’s also currently under investigation for ethics violations. Seriously?!

Here’s a good fact for McCain/Palin N08: John McCain has been alive longer than the state that Palin represents has existed. And rumor has it McCain sat behind Jesus in the third grade. More details later.