More Dirt on Sarah Palin's Fancy Duds



Sarah and Todd Palin (David McNew/Getty Images)

The McCain-Palin campaign is over, but Wardrobe-gate lives on. More embarrassing details have emerged about Sarah Palin's infamous shopping sprees -- including even more designer duds, plus sprayed-on tans and fancy underwear.

On top of the $150,000 first outlined in Federal Election Commission filings, Palin spent "tens of thousands of dollars" on additional clothing, makeup and jewelry for herself and her family, including $40,000 in luxury goods for her husband, Todd, our colleague Michael Shear reports. The campaign was charged for silk boxer shorts, spray tanners and 13 suitcases to carry all the designer clothes, according to two GOP insiders.

"The shopping continued after the convention in Minneapolis, it continued all around the country," one source said. "She was still receiving shipments of custom-designed underpinnings up to her 'Saturday Night Live' performance" in October. Sources said expenses were put on the personal credit cards of low-level Palin staffers and discovered when they asked party officials for reimbursement.

Newsweek reports that top McCain aides were stunned by the huge tab, especially after adviser Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three outfits for the convention and three for the campaign trail, with a budget of $25,000; instead, the nominee racked up six-figure bills at high-end department stores. "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," a McCain aide sniffed to the magazine.

Palin has always contended that she didn't ask for the extravagant makeover. The campaign previously said the used clothing would be auctioned off for charity; the L.A. Times reports that a Republican National Committee lawyer is headed to Alaska to inventory and retrieve the items still in her possession.

Palin even raised eyebrows for what she didn't wear: In St. Paul during the convention, McCain senior staffers Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter arrived at her hotel room for a briefing and found her wearing nothing but a towel, with a second one wrapped around her wet hair, Newsweek reports. "I'll be just a minute," she said, ordering them to chat with the First Dude while they waited.



