Palin 60min. Post Elec. Interview: "Never Asked For Clothes" Africa a Country? 1 of 5

In this exclusive Fox News On The Record With Greta Van Susteren interview Sarah Palin the Governor of Alaska and former Vice Presidential candidate defends herself from the outrageous allegations that she herself bought $150,000 worth of clothing and that she doesn't know that Africa is a continent and not a country. By PATRICK HEALY and MICHAEL LUO Published: October 22, 2008 Sarah Palins wardrobe joined the ranks of symbolic political excess on Wednesday, alongside John McCains multiple houses and John Edwardss $400 haircut, as Republicans expressed fear that weeks of tailoring Ms. Palin as an average hockey mom would fray amid revelations that the Republican Party outfitted her with expensive clothing from high-end stores. Cable television, talk radio and even shows like Access Hollywood seemed gripped with sartorial fever after campaign finance reports confirmed that the Republican National Committee spent $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue in September for Ms. Palin and her family. Advisers to Ms. Palin said on Wednesday that the purchases — which totaled about $150,000 and were classified as campaign accessories — were made on the fly after Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, was chosen as the Republican vice-presidential candidate on Aug. 29 and needed new clothes to match climates across the 50 states. They emphasized, too, that Ms. Palin did not spend time on the shopping, and that other people made the decision to buy such an array of clothes. Yet Republicans expressed consternation publicly and privately that the shopping sprees on her behalf, which were first reported by Politico, would compromise Ms. Palins standing as Senator McCains chief emissary to working-class voters whose salvos at the so-called cultural elite often delight audiences at Republican rallies. That possibility was brought to life, for instance, on The View on ABC, as Joy Behar, a co-host, noted the McCain campaigns outreach to blue-collar workers — like an Ohio plumber who recently chided Senator Barack Obama over taxes — after another co-host, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, defended the expenditures. I dont think Joe the Plumber wears Manolo Blahniks, Ms. Behar said. Advisers to Mr. Obama — as well as those of his rival in the Democratic primaries, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton — said that campaign money was never spent on personal clothing but that potentially embarrassing purchases could be blended into advertising budgets. Mr. Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, however, listed two $400 haircuts as a campaign expense, and after they were detected he struggled to shake an elitist image in his failed Democratic presidential bid. Such an image is unhelpful at this late stage of the general election, Republicans said, especially when many families are experiencing economic pain, and when the image applies to a candidate, like Ms. Palin, who has run for office in part on her appeal as an outdoors enthusiast and former small-town mayor who scorns pretensions. It looks like nobody with a political antenna was working on this, said Ed Rollins, a Republican political consultant who ran President Ronald Reagans re-election campaign in 1984. It just undercuts Palins whole image as a hockey mom, a one-of-us kind of candidate.

YouTube | November 11, 2008