Sarah Palin's clothes

So the McCain campaign spent $150,000 on Sarah Palin's clothes, about as much as they are spending each week for television ads in Colorado, and $11,000 a week on her traveling make-up artist. This may have been stupid, but I don't see anything particularly scandalous about it. Top of the line clothes are expensive -- Cindy McCain was wearing about $300,000 worth of clothes and jewelry at her husband's nomination, mostly in the form of diamonds -- and her beauty is part of Palin's charisma.

What I find interesting is what this says about the two-faced nature of Sarah Palin's appeal. On the one hand she presents herself as an ordinary, small-town "hockey mom," who shops at WalMart and knows what it's like to face the problems you face. Except that she isn't an ordinary mom, she's a glamorous celebrity. She isn't like you, she's like what you would be like if you were beautiful, rich, and charismatic. For her real fans, I bet the revelation of this shopping spree only increases her appeal, because a new wardrobe is an essential part of the ordinary woman's celebrity fantasies (see "Cinderella" and "Pretty Woman"). Given sudden access to unlimited money, she spent it just the way they would. Her religious faith and her decision to keep a baby with Down Syndrome serve as anchors, showing that despite her meteoric rise she has held on to what is best in her small-town background. It's another part of the fantasy -- if I got rich, it wouldn't change who I really am.