What’s wrong with shopping at Macy’s, Saks, or heaven forbid – Neiman Marcus? Aren’t the first two already providing jobs in Sarasota; aren’t we all eagerly awaiting the boost to our economy that Neiman Marcus will bring when it opens at University Town Center?  

I just don’t get the vitriol about Sarah Palin’s wardrobe expense and the implication that department stores are elitist. Her campaign bought the clothes for her (and her family) at retail. They weren’t gifts from designers as is status quo with Hollywood and TV celebrities. She didn’t “borrow” goods and services as others in the public eye ostensibly do – all the while never intending to return them.

If you know basic business marketing, and indeed, the presidential campaign leaders are marketing their candidates, then you know that campaign expenses include many line items similar to those in advertising or sales promotion campaigns in the private sector. In the context of a marketing expense, Sarah Palin’s wardrobe and stylist fees are no different from Obama’s Greek Columns and $140,000-podium (the expense is identified in FEC filings at http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/10/140000_spent_on_for_dncc_podiu_1.asp .   

It isn’t wrong for Republicans to shop to the tune of $150,000 in local stores around the country and donate Palin’s clothes to charity. And by extension, it isn’t wrong for Democrats to spend $5,300,000 on their convention’s stage set with Greek columns and podium -- plus a whopping $800 million on advertising. Each campaign has the right to market itself and its candidates as they see fit.  

Let’s take this argument to the micro level. I am amazed at letters to the editor at the Sarasota Herald Tribune denouncing the wardrobe expense by the Republican campaign at middle-to-high end stores. One especially partisan entry bore the headline, Let them Wear Rags, implying the Republican campaign’s clothing purchases [specifically naming Saks] were hurting the people of America – maybe even keeping them from buying bread a la Marie Antoinette?  http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20081024/LETTERS/810240308/2163/OPINION?Title=GOP_fashion__Let_them_wear_rags

I maintain that shopping and the fashion industry help fuel the American economy. I speak daily to retailers from Sarasota to Venice to Bradenton who are hurting because people are not shopping. These businesses have been funded in many cases with Sarasotans’ life savings. Many of them sell expensive clothes because of Sarasota’s demographics. These stores provide jobs and tax revenues. What are the proposed tax cuts, rebates or whatever you wish to call the stimulus plans by both parties supposed to stimulate - if not spending in local economies?

I wonder: Do fashion editors who breathlessly cover top name clothes typically decry those who wear the stuff? I haven’t seen a shred of evidence of that in any of the shopping bibles, including Vogue and Lucky magazines. Moore denounces Palin as Caribou Barbie for appearing well-dressed. What are the fashion industry and its idolization of beautiful people about, anyway? 

If you attempted to buy the clothing featured editorially in the New York and Los Angeles Fashions of the Times, you’d be hard-pressed to put together a family’s seasonal wardrobe for under $150,000.  I guess the LA Times, NY Times, Vogue, Lucky et al just want to ‘Let them Wear Rags,’ and don’t really expect their  readers to buy anything they see on those $20,000- to $150,000-a-page ads that Saks, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus and myriad designers place in their publications. Excuse me, is Moore’s column what they call a political gaffe?