Just In: The Governor Has No Clothes!
Yesterday, Governor Sarah Palin, now freed from the watchful eyes of McCain campaign operatives, denied claims that during the campaign she had run up a $150,000+ clothing bill, and all at GOP expense. The original revelations in October had stirred up complaints that Governor Palin, while portraying herself as common folk, had betrayed her supporters by approving wild buying sprees at high fashion boutiques like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. As the campaign wound down, more and more “Palinography” surfaced detailing a VP candidate who abused a GOP donor’s open-ended contribution of clothing money, and even directed campaign staffers to put her expenses on their own credit cards, to be reimbursed, she assured them, by the GOP at a later date. The Governor has repeatedly denied these allegations. Upon returning to her Gubernatorial duties last Friday, Palin told reporters, “I never asked for anything more than a Diet Dr. Pepper once in a while.” She went on to explain, “Those are the RNC’s clothes. They’re not my clothes. I never forced anybody to buy anything.”
However, new and startling revelations have arisen, revelations that are stranger than fiction, yet squarely in line with the Governor’s reputation as a “maverick.” Today, GOP campaign sources at the highest levels spoke out in a single voice to defend the costs for Palin’s wardrobe, explaining that the Governor arrived at the GOP convention in August with no clothing whatever. “Yes, that’s quite true,” said a highly placed campaign worker, “There she was, the putative VP pick, waiting at the Minneapolis airport wearing nothing but a beach towel.“
“The prospect of a candidate for the second highest office in the land appearing before the country clothed in this minimalist manner presented the campaign directorship with exceedingly difficult choices,” said one of Senator McCain’s inner circle. Not surprisingly, given the importance of the issue, within the campaign there were disagreements about how to proceed. One group within the McCain camp, the “minimalist” faction, saw in Palin’s simple clothing choices a message that comported well with the GOP’s message of less government, less waste, less artifice, less elitism, and, apparently, less clothing. One other rationale was also convincing. According to one minimalist pollster, “Let’s be candid, th
e Guv has a fantastic bod, and well, our focus groups showed a sharp preference among males aged 13 to 85 for a less, shall we say, ‘overdressed’ VP. Conversely, among comparable likely Democrat voters, comparisons of the Guv with images of Senator Biden dressed in a towel brought about mass desertions, including measurable levels of vomiting and wailing.” Some found the idea of a VP candidate clothed in a beach towel interesting, even Democrtic President Clinton was rumored to have deemed it “intriguing.” Another McCain group, however, the “dress for success” faction, took a dimmer view of the Governor’s choice of attire, or lack thereof, believing it might offend millions of the family values and moral crusader voters so urgently needed to offset Senator McCain’s reputation of softness on social issues. Ultimately, the dress for success faction won the day, with the deciding vote coming from Cindy McCain herself who reportedly warned, “No way I’m appearing in public with a skank in a bedsheet!” or words to that effect.
Thus, the exhaustively reported “buying spree” had its genesis in necessity; not by any means was it Governor Palin’s choice, and she resisted it at all points. Today, VP candidate Palin’s Garment Task Force Director (GTFD) reported “She simply had not a stitch of clothing that was even marginally appropriate to anything but an ancient Roman bacchanalia.” Among the items in her “clothing sack” (the Governor had no suitcases) were two beach towels, three washcloths, a few skimpy animal skins (some of which, according to the 
GTFD “were still quite alive”), and a tin foil chapeau shaped like moose antlers, referred to by the Governor as an “Executive Headdress.” The GTFD continued, obviously exasperated, “For God’s sake, people, she didn’t even understand the very idea of undergarments, and laughed herself to tears when they were explained to her. We never could get her to wear underpants!”
So, clearly, once the minimalist faction had been sent packing, the Governor’s lassitude toward clothing needed addressing, and quickly. Particularly daunting were the facts that emerged about her dressing habits while exercising her role as Governor. Though hidden through the Alaska Photoshop Division (the only state to have an entire agency dedicated to Photoshopping a Governor’s daily press images), Governor Palin spends most of her time in a state of “radical undress,” a euphemism within the McCain camp for “completely stark naked.” (Carefully edited, G rated, un-Photoshopped pictures accompany this report.)
Therefore, VP candidate Palin had not only to be provided clothing of every kind, but had to be convinced that clothing was to be the rule on the campaign trail rather than the occasional exception. As explained by the GTFD, “At first, we had to literally chase her around the hotel room, hold her down, and carefully staple on each garment. She only cooperated – and minimally so – if, as the Governor demanded, ‘underpants were off the table’.” Thus, the widely circulated story of Governor Palin greeting campaign directors Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis clad only in a bath towel emerges not as apocryphal urban legend, but as indisputable fact. “Yes, and usually she wore far far less than that when greeting campaign staffers,” a source close to the campaign director revealed, with a knowing wink.
In any event, with the context now clear, the “buying sprees” are viewed by Republican and Democrat alike as arising out of sheer necessity and without the tinge of impropriety that suffused earlier reports. As for the Governor, she maintains she is pleased to be back in a state where “anything goes,” partic
ularly, one surmises, outer garments of any variety.
