RSS Feed MenuThis morning, FrumForum.com broke news that the Republican National Committee has been stashing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s campaign wardrobe in garbage bags. Our story has been widely picked up on the Web and has generated much controversy. Some further things need to be said:
This story is not a story about Gov. Palin. In this matter, the former vice-presidential nominee did exactly the right thing. She promised to return the wardrobe at the end of the campaign, and she did return the wardrobe.
The story is about a dysfunctional party apparatus. Because of their own inability to act, the RNC has left Gov. Palin looking like a promise-breaker – and left everyone who donated to the McCain-Palin campaign feeling like a fool.
The rage in the donor community about the wardrobe is real and intense. Our party was gasping for funds in 2008. We could not afford to waste a dime. More to the point: not every Republican donor is rich. Many are people to whom the $200 or $500 or $1000 they give represents a real sacrifice. They need to know that their sacrifice has not been used frivolously. The RNC’s protracted delay in donating the clothes as promised raises a troubling question: Will our party be embarrassed by what those bags contain?
Our party has been crippled by an all-pervading assumption at the center that if you just don’t talk about bad news, it will go away: whether it’s an extravagant wardrobe decision - or a bad job creation record. Our leaders cocoon themselves, refuse to hear unwelcome news, and reward yesmanship.
We have seen this attitude again in the reaction in some quarters to our story. If only Frum Forum had refrained from mentioning the obvious – that Palin’s promise had been left hanging in midair – why then nobody else would mention it either. And if nobody mentioned it, then it would disappear. Right? Not right. As soon as Gov. Palin returned to the national scene, so too would all the unanswered questions left over from the last campaign.
There is obviously something seriously wrong with the decision making at the Republican center. It is this leadership dysfunction that should be the central issue in the race for the chairmanship of the RNC. Tragically however it is generally assumed that the frontrunner in the race is the current incumbent: a man who apparently thinks that stuffing unwanted things in trash bags makes them magically disappear. Meanwhile, the man who offers a charismatic, telegenic face for our party – Michael Steele – is disregarded because he has accumulated some ideological speeding tickets as he fought and nearly won a tight senatorial race in one of the nation’s bluest states.
Gov. Palin remains a controversial figure in the Republican party. But the moral of this particular story is not a moral that bears on her. The moral bears on the RNC, an organization whose leaders think that evasion is a solution. It’s time for new leadership at the RNC and at all the highest levels of our party organization.
dragonlady // Jan 26, 2009 at 9:25 am
Mrfreeze, thanks for the olive branch. Likewise.
ProudLiberal // Jan 26, 2009 at 11:30 am
senorlechero
11:18 PM
I don’t know w Realspear is, but I posted that I would like democrats barred from posting. It’s not about viewpoint, its about democrats and liberals posting here to cause havoc. There’s enough havoc between the branches of conservativism, we dont need liberals posting too. Frankly I could never read, yet alone post, on a liberal or democrat site.
This is ridiculous. It’s a free country. Wever wants to respond to this article suld be able to respond.
I think you just exemplified one of the worst things about Republicans: you try to shut up anyone w doesn’t agree with you. Liberals do that, too, but I’ve never seen a liberal asking conservatives to be barred from an online discussion.
If your opinions aren’t strong enough that you can’t argue them, maybe they’re not actually your opinions. And if you want to strengthen them, the way to do is to argue.
like-mind // Jan 27, 2009 at 10:18 am
The word coming out of the McCain campaign was that Palin was told to buy a couple of suits for appearances, and she is the one who went on a ‘kid in a candy store’ multi-state spending spree. When she wasn’t able to spend anymore, she imposed upon campaign staffers to put further purchases on their own personal credit cards – that’s why there was a blow-up after the campaign loss: all those staffers submitted the expenditures for reimbursement. When Palin pretended that she was unaware of that the clothes were expensive (to try to reclaim her soccer-mom-ishness), she was lying: not only does any model/beauty queen know when clothes are expensive, but also the clothing was brought to her for trying-on by Personal Shoppers from Nordstrom et al, at her request and to her specifications.
This is an example of the denial and deceit that Mr. Frum rightly decries.
KayJay // Jan 30, 2009 at 1:07 pm
oodoodanoo said 1/24/2009 11:07 AM: “Frum and his kind are just angling to get Palin out of the way with this story. They can’t see her qualities, even though the rest of the Republican Party can. SHE ISN’T PART OF THE WASHINGTON SET?”.”————-Oh, no? Then why did she start up a PAC? Why did she engage a Mass. PR firm? Why is she NOT tending to AK business during that state’s trying times?———–She shouldn’t be interested in that Alfalfa Club old-fogies get-together this weekend if she were a “mavericky outsider”, and ESPECIALLY shouldn’t be interested in meeting and greeting Pres. Obama — after the way she denigrated him during the campaign. She’s a hypocrite through and through.———-as for the RNC clothing: My own personal belief is that the Palins took all the clothing out of the RNC plane when they returned to Alaska after the failed election attempt in November, and they replaced most if not all of the clothing — sprinkling a few sample pieces of RNC-bought clothing on top — with THEIR OWN old worn wardrobe. And the RNC knows about it, and is too embarrassed by this scam to “nail Palin”.