Social Cache.
A Nemo blog. Dealing with uncommon cents.

Now that Sarah Palin’s designer-laden $150,000 wardrobe expenditure has been confirmed, the Rebuplican party has pushed into overdrive with defensive responses. In the past few days, the McCain camp affirmed that she did none of the shopping herself and that once the campaigning is over, all of the clothing will be donated to charity.

The reason this expenditure raises so much worry is because Palin was billed as a working mom of five with blue-collar roots. This sudden shift to designer labels, whether it was her decision or not, was called out by Joy Behar, a cohost on ABC’s The View. “I don’t think Joe the Plumber wears Manolo Blahniks,” she said.

These expenditures have the ability to further alienate Palin from the working-class Republicans she has courted, since many of them are suffering so much in the weakening economy. Whether this will cause a permanent rift between Palin and the legions of “Joe Six-Packs” remains to be seen.

The New York Times announced that Senator McCain has picked a running mate – Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

In a surprise move, Senator John McCain announced here Friday that he had chosen Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate, shaking up the political world at a time when his campaign has been trying to attract women, especially disaffected supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

On the surface this seems like a great opportunity to celebrate equality – the first woman chosen by the Republican party to be on the VP ticket. Give McCain’s choice some thought though and you soon realize that this not about helping women ascend to higher office, this is just politics as usual. Gov. Palin is just a pawn in the game and the game is to attempt to attract disaffected female Democrats to the McCain ticket. Gov. Palin brings no experience to the ticket whatsoever, and at his age you would have expected McCain would have picked someone with a great deal of experience should she have to take over the Oval Office.

McCain’s advisors clearly think that in this campaign women voters will presumably flock to the McCain – Palin ticket just because she’s a woman. So, women of America, congratulations you are now thought of as a demographic group to be wooed for votes. No experience necessary. If I were female I would find this all very demeaning. Women deserve more in this election. Both camps should be very aware of their voting power.