Dressing Sarah Palin

Susan Mannella

I am not the least bit surprised that it cost $150,000 to dress Gov. Palin up for multiple campaign stops each.

Like it or not, a woman on the campaign trail can't dress the same every day, as the male candidates can. Barack Obama, John McCain and Joe Biden probably could wear the same suit every day if they chose to do that and, as long as they had it freshly pressed and changed their ties, nobody would notice.

Not so for Ms. Palin. The Republican throngs who greet her at campaign stops each day expect her to be well-dressed. Heck, plenty of them are paying $25,000 for the privilege of having their photographs taken with Ms. Palin. She better not show up in sweat pants and a fleece jacket looking like she's headed down to watch the rink rats practice their slap shots.

If the Republican National Committee wants to spend its money to dress up Sarah Palin so she looks good on the national stage, I don't have a problem with that.

The argument is that she's being hypocritical because she paints herself as the common woman, just one of the regular folks, but then spends $150,000 on clothing. That certainly is way out of line with the clothing budget for most American women, but a more fair comparison might be putting Ms. Palin's clothing budget up against a Hollywood celebrity. You can be sure the $150,000 price tag is chump change by comparison.

 For a smarter take on the whole fashion slap, take a look at what Robin Givhan of the Washington Post said this morning.