No Fairy Tale : Palin’s Cinderella Moment

‘This is just so over-her-head amateurish.’
By Paul Robbins / The Rag Blog / October 27, 2008

I watched the TV News of Sarah Palin speaking in Tampa Sunday. My jaw dropped as I heard the quote.

Those [$150,000] clothes, they are not my property. Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the RNC purchased, I’m not taking them with me.

O……Kay. They’re just acting costumes?! Props?! It’s all for show?! My God, it is like she is admitting in public that the whole Vice-President role in the election is just an act, like some skit in “Saturday Night Live”?! This is just so over-her-head amateurish.

She continued that when the campaign is over:

I am back to wearing my own clothes from my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska.

This is Palin’s Cinderella Moment.

Hmmm. What if, by some fluke, she wins? Will she still dress down in second-hand Levis and mended sweaters?

Also apparently part of the act was paying $22,800 for a make-up artist for two weeks of work (in addition to $13,200 for “communications consulting.”)

Sarah was also boasting of her humility by wearing a:

$35 wedding ring from Hawaii that I bought myself and ’cause I always thought with my ring it’s not what it’s made of, it’s what it represents, and 20 years later, happy to wear it.

The real story is a little different.

Palin and her husband were probably not flush when they were first married. But they appear to have done fairly well for themselves. Last year, the couple made about $230,000.

Their net wealth exceeds a million dollars, and includes:

• $125,000 for her Governor’s salary;
• $17,000 for per diem payments to allow Palin to live at home while being Governor;
• $43,490 to cover travel costs for her husband and children;
• $93,000 for Todd Palin’s oil production salary and fishing revenue;
• a half-million dollar home on a lake with a family-owned airplane at the dock;
• land investments (it appears the Palin’s dabble in speculation);
• at least partial ownership of 2 vacation retreats (one of which might be inferred as said speculation).

And you also have to consider that Alaska itself is an economic anomaly. Its standard of living is subsidized by low taxes and Big Oil. Sarah Palin did not create this situation, but the state economy she had flourished in is supported by it.

Alaska is literally the highest ranking state in per capita federal taxes received to support the state, and third highest in ratio of federal taxes received to federal taxes paid out.

And its local and state taxes are the lowest in the country due to severance taxes on resources, mostly oil and gas production.

Even income is subsidized by dividends from investments made with $40 billion of oil and gas revenues managed by the Alaska Permanent Fund. (I guess those hockey moms in Ohio should get themselves some oil wells and invest prudently like Alaskans did. Then they wouldn’t be scraping by purchasing clothes in consignment shops.)

What will be interesting is that when Palin turns back into a humble Governor and Tina Fey finds her next role, Sarah may launch a new career.

She may run for reelection, of course. But her approval ratings are down even in her home state. She has just been through a scandal about abuse of power, and similar scrutiny may occur with other issues.

So I think she will branch out. Why shrink back from the unexpected national fame she has been blessed with? There is Cinderella, The Book. Cinderella, The Movie. Hey, maybe she’ll even finally go on Letterman? What are the odds FOX will audition her own show?

Palin said she was going to give the clothes to charity when this election is over. But my guess is there will be ways for her to get them back. And as anyone who buys a $150,000 wardrobe knows, these costumes are part of the show, “just like the lighting and the staging and everything else.”

The Rag Blog