PALIN: DESIGNER CLOTHES ... AND THE (OTHER) N-WORD

Page Six in the New York Post tells us that Average Hockey Mom Sarah Palin actually has a taste for nicer things:

HOCKEY mom Sarah Palin not only wore lipstick to the Republican National Convention, the vice-presidential candidate wore a shantung silk Valentino jacket worth $2,500.

Insiders tell Page Six Palin has a secretive circle of stylists who dress her for events. For her big speech in St. Paul, where she accepted the GOP's vice-presidential nod, this fashion-conscious team encouraged the Alaska governor to splurge on a $2,500 jacket from Saks Fifth Avenue designed by Valentino Garavani.

... she's springing for designer labels. One source familiar with Palin's primping posse told us, "They do not want the American public to know that Palin is using stylists or that she is paying for expensive clothes this early on in the campaign." ...

Nothing wrong with wearing stylish duds, if you're a female politician at the national level ... unless you're someone who incessantly proclaims your ordinariness, and you're building the entire argument for your candidacy on that posture of ordinariness, while your ticket slams your opponent as "elitist" day after day after day.

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Nothing wrong with having a nanny either, if you're a professional woman with kids and you can swing it -- and yet I've never seen the words "Sarah Palin" and "nanny" in the same article. And I know she's had one, because she said so herself in that Wasilla church video, just before she talked about the Iraq War and whether it was God's plan:

... Christie was our -- she was my nanny when my kids were real little....

That's at about 5:23. Do people know this? Hasn't the Palin-McCain campaign conveyed the impression that Palin does it all herself -- you know, firing (or at least reassigning) the chef and all that?

And there's this in the Palin story The New York Times ran on Sunday:

Another confidante of Ms. Palin's is Ms. [Ivy] Frye, 27. She worked as a receptionist for State Senator Lyda Green before she joined Ms. Palin's campaign for governor. Now Ms. Frye earns $68,664 as a special assistant to the governor. Her frequent interactions with Ms. Palin's children have prompted some lawmakers to refer to her as "the babysitter," a title that Ms. Frye disavows.

I'm sure Palin, like all working mothers, can use the help. The problem is, she's being sold to us as someone who doesn't need or want any help. And as someone who doesn't like big-city sophistication. I guess that's true, except when it comes on a hanger.