G.O.P. Paid Almost $55,000 for Palin Fashion Stylist
By Michael Luo
NY Times



Updated A woman who appears from campaign finance records to have been
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s fashion stylist was paid $54,900 by the
Republican National Committee, according to a new report filed with the
Federal Election Commission.

A charge for that amount to “Lisa Kline & Co.” for “Consulting-Campaign”
appears on Oct. 17 in the R.N.C.’s latest campaign finance report. Ms.
Kline is a New York stylist whose name had previously appeared alongside
some of the much ballyhooed $150,000 in charges for clothing and other
“campaign accessories” from luxury stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and
Neiman Marcus.

Repeated calls to her home and office in New York over the last month or
so since her name first appeared in reports were not returned.

The newest report appears to show about $23,000 in additional charges
labeled as “campaign accessories” from a variety of stores, including
Saks, Neiman’s, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret,
Brooks Brothers, Ann Taylor and Target.

Republican officials have said that all of the clothing is now in their
possession and will be turned over to charity.

In addition, the McCain campaign paid Ms. Palin’s traveling hair stylist
and makeup artist more than $110,000 for roughly two months of work,
according to campaign finance records.

As in the previous shopping charges, it appears from campaign finance
records that people who initially purchased the clothes, or at least
footed the charges, were subsequently reimbursed by the R.N.C.

Interestingly, in the newest charges on campaign finance records, many
of the people who initially footed the charges were campaign staffers,
including Andrew Smith, Ms. Palin’s chief of staff, Christopher Edwards,
who was in charge of advance for Ms. Palin, and Kristi Pulsfort, a
member of the traveling press staff.

Mr. Smith apparently footed the bill for more than $3,000 in charges at
Aldo (a shoe store chain), Bloomingdales and Macy’s, all in Orlando, as
well as Home Optics, a glasses and contacts store in Chugiak, Alaska,
about a half hour from Ms. Palin’s home in Wasilla.

A woman named Jeannie Etchart, who appears on the McCain campaign’s
payroll, picked up the most in charges, totaling more than $14,000 from
places like Banana Republic, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom.

The appearance of the staffers’ names in the records matches up with an
account in Newsweek’s book on the campaign that was the first to report
that there were additional charges for clothing beyond the initial
$150,000 and said Ms. Palin used low-level staffers to purchase some of
the items and put them on their credit cards. Newsweek said the McCain
campaign discovered this just before the election when they sought
repayment.

Update | 9:26 p.m.: Meghan Stapleton, a former senior adviser to the
vice presidential
campaign, sent a strongly worded e-mail statement:

Governor Palin is focused on her duties as governor of the state of Alaska.

With that said, news reports concerning purchases of services and
accessories are disappointing considering Governor Palin did not
authorize the expenditures made on behalf of the vice presidential
campaign. The Governor was not consulted about these immaterial and
inconsequential decisions as she was busy focusing on the substantive
areas of the campaign and running the state of Alaska. The decisions
reflected in this disclosure are financially poor decisions made by
campaign staffers hired by the campaign and not the Governor. The
Governor expected judicious decisions to be made and they weren’t.

She is absolutely appalled at the news and the amount of money
reportedly spent on the vice presidential campaign. To this day, the
Governor has not seen a list of expenses for the campaign and its staff,
and she does not know who benefited from all the expenditures reported.

The campaign has now ended and Governor Palin has moved forward and is
concerned with tackling the challenges confronting the people of Alaska.
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Sarah Palin, the gift that keeps on giving and giving.