Palin’s shopping spree was even bigger than the $150K already reported says Newsweek:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

EXCLUSIVE: Must Credit Rolling Stone National Affairs Daily

Rolling Stone has obtained exclusive copies of Sarah Palin’s medical records from her doctor in Alaska. All 259 pages viewable and searchable here.

Clearly convicted felon Ted Stevens is more than just a guy from Sarah Palin’s political neighborhood. What is the full extent of their relationship?

It goes back at least six years, with the two pairing up for a whirlwind, two-week campaign to get Frank Murkowski elected governor…

Anchorage Daily News
October 20, 2002 Sunday

…[Frank] Murkowski has called in the Republicans’ old guard and a new star to give his campaign a lift in the final weeks.

U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and Sarah Palin, the Wasilla mayor and former Republican lieutenant governor candidate, will begin two weeks of campaigning for Murkowski this weekend.

The pair’s first stop in the Southcentral area is scheduled for Monday at Anchorage’s annual City of Lights ceremony downtown. Tuesday they will be in Palmer and Girdwood. Wednesday they are scheduled to travel to Homer and Cordova. Thursday they will travel to Fairbanks and then to Kodiak.

Palin, who is at the end of her final term as Wasilla’s mayor, narrowly lost the Republican primary race for lieutenant governor to Loren Leman on Aug. 27….

This Ted Stevens fiasco is baggage of the McCain camp’s own choosing. Before they added Sarah Palin to the ticket, Alaska was anything but Main Street America. Under the old rules, Steven’s corruption scandal could well have blown over as a parochial scandal of the great, oily North.

But since picking Palin, McCain & Co. have staked out Alaska as the living, beating heart of American authenticity. And so, today, Ted Steven’s felonious betrayal of the public trust is going to allow Democrats to campaign like it’s 2006 — against the Republican “culture of corruption” that proved so electorally toxic to the GOP two years ago.

Let’s remember that the McCain camp knew in late July that Stevens was under indictment and demanding a speedy trial that would put Alaska’s frontier ethics front-and-center in the days before the election.

And yet, thanks to a vetting free Veepstakes, in August the campaign chose Palin, who not only owes her governorship to Stevens’ throaty endorsement, but as recently as 2005 served as the director of “Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service” 527 group.

As usual, the intrepid Anchorage Daily News offers the go-to coverage of the Stevens/Palin entanglements. This adn.com video offers a glimpse of their buddy-buddy relationship:

At minute 1:13 you can see the last-minute 2006 campaign commercial in which Stevens passes the baton to Palin’s “new generation” of leadership, asking his fellow Alaskans to “help Sarah become governor, which we all want to see.”

Half way through, we see Palin and Stevens joshing around together at a press conference from this past July — post the FBI raid of Stevens’ home, but just prior to his indictment. Stevens chummily calls it “The Sarah and Ted Show.”

Minute 3:39

Stevens: Hell, I don’t know if you know it but when Frank Murkowski was first elected this lady and I … traveled around the state for two weeks. We’ve known each other a long time. Worked together a long time.

Minute 4:12

Palin: I have great respect for the senator…. His voice, his experience, his passion needs to be heard across America. So that Alaska can contribute more. So that we can be producers. So that we can help lead the rest of the U.S. I, again, have great respect for him. There’s a big difference between reality and perception regarding our relationship.

So here’s my question: If Sarah Palin was such an all-American maverick, what was she doing palling around with a suspected felon like Ted Stevens?

Think Progress

Just last month, in an interview with Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker, Palin explained the windfall profits tax that she imposed on the oil industry in Alaska as a mechanism for ensuring that Alaskans “share in the wealth” generated by oil companies:

And Alaska—we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs. … It’s to maximize benefits for Alaskans, not an individual company, not some multinational somewhere, but for Alaskans.

You really can’t make this up…

Palin’s Makeup Stylist Fetches Highest Salary – NYTimes.com

Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?

Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staff member. It was Amy Strozzi, who was identified by the Washington Post this week as Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.

Ms. Strozzi, who was nominated for an Emmy award for her makeup work on the television show “So You Think You Can Dance?,” was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone, according to the records. The campaign categorized Ms. Strozzi’s payment as “PERSONNEL SVC/EQUIPMENT.”

Marc Ambinder astutely observes that the while the McCain campaign might argue that Obama has “socialistic inclinations… Palin’s gotten it done.”

To wit:

Palin taxed oil company profits and cut $1200 checks for every Alaskans.

That’s spreading the wealth. Redistributing some money.

Just another Main Street American, what with her $150,000 wardrobe makeover paid for by the RNC, and her gubernatorial tanning bed, and her assets topping $1 million. Also, gettin’ paid travel money to sleep at home. Why, she’s just like us. You betcha.