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Ben Smith: Formal complaint over formal wear:
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a watchdog group, has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Sarah Palin and the Republican National Committee claiming the RNC violated campaign finance laws when it paid for $150,000 for clothes for the party’s vice presidential nominee and her family.
Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, said the purchases should be disallowed under campaign finance rules that prevent candidates from using campaign cash to buy items of “personal use,” including clothing.
Campaign finance experts say those rules have never been applied to party committee accounts.
The twist in this case is that the RNC fashion funds came from a joint account held by the RNC and the McCain-Palin campaign. The Federal Election Commission has never ruled on weather the personal use ban should apply to funds in that particular type of account.
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Ari – it does get ‘better’:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/…..d=rss-page
“Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin insisted in an interview with the Tribune on Thursday that she did not accept $150,000 worth of designer clothes from the Republican Party and “that is not who we are.”
“That whole thing is just, bad!” she said. “Oh, if people only knew how frugal we are.
“It’s kind of painful to be criticized for something when all the facts are not out there and are not reported,” said Palin, saying the clothes are not worth $150,000 and were bought for the Republican National Convention. Still, she has been wearing pricey clothes at campaign events this fall. She said they will be given back, auctioned off or sent to charity. Most of them, she said, haven’t even left the belly of her campaign plane.”
Uh, Sarah – In case you haven’t noticed – ‘worth’, ‘value’, and cost are sort of related. And ‘did not accept’ sounds remarkably like Ted Stevens’ argument about his ‘nongifts’ as well (and also sounds remarkably like ‘I did not have sex with that woman’ too), and dayam, girl — you’re WEARING THE CLOTHES!! Suck it up. The other thing: You can’t call yourself frugal when a) YOU’RE WEARING clothing that would pay for healthcare for goodness how many people, pay for a house, etc. and b) “…most..of them haven’t event left the belly of her campaign plane.” Excuse me? When did you think you were going to get around to wearing them, Sarah? There’s only a couple of weeks left in the camapaign. Were some of them meant for the victory party and the period AFTER you guys win the election? Poor planning, Sarah. And THAT is NOT FRUGAL.