How much to get dressed on the campaign trail?

Palin’s wardrobe expenditures are still big news. One kind of response we’re hearing goes like this:

“Politics is a game of appearances and everyone has to look nice. If Palin hadn’t gotten new clothes, we’d be hearing about how frumpy she looked. This is so sexist. No one talks about Obama’s clothes. And, besides, he spends a fortune: rumor has it, he only wears Burberry.”

One such response comes from Mona Charen over at the Corner. This sort of response entirely misses the point. Nobody’s denying that candidates have to look nice. What offends about the story is the excess: we have a hard time believing that someone could need $150,000 worth of clothes for a campaign, even when it is a requirement that candidates look sharp.

Nina Rastogi has tried to spend $150,000 on women’s clothing at Saks. She can’t do it: she spends around $60,000 and (had she actually been shopping) would have come home with a closet full of shoes and clothes.

Since part of the criticism is that we’ve got a double standard because we’re not crying about Barack clothes, I thought I’d see how much it costs to outfit Barack for a campaign. (Even though the criticism itself is silly because Barack isn’t spending a bunch of donor money on clothing, what the hell?)

Let’s assume that Obama wears $1500 Burberry suits (though this might be a stretch, since you can get Burberry suits from Nordstrom for $1000). And suppose he needs ten suits for campaigning (though this is probably a stretch). Cost: $15,000.

Obama needs some ties. More ties than suits. Let’s say he needs twenty ties and he buys expensive silk ties like this one at $95 a pop. Cost: $1900.

Shoes. McCain wears Ferragamo loafers that cost $520 per pair. Suppose Obama needs five pairs of those – to match each of his variety of suits. Cost: $2600.

Shirts. I assume Obama doesn’t want to shop at two different stores for his shirts and suits – he’s a dude, remember? – so let’s suppose he buys these $195 Burberry shirts. And he probably needs fifteen or twenty of them. Let’s take the high estimate. Cost: $3900.

Miscellaneous. Obama needs socks, cuff links, lapel pins, underpants, etc. Let’s suppose Michelle is really picky and wants him to spend a lot on all of these items. We’ll give him a significant budget. Cost: $1500.

The grand total: $24,900

Let’s put that another way: one-sixth of Palin’s clothing and makeup bill which was charged to the RNC.

Two quick points:

1) The Palin’s are worth over $1 million according to their 2007 tax returns. They are decidedly not middle class, despite what she says on the campaign trail. Is $25,000 too much to spend to look good on the campaign trail?

2) You might think that spending $25,000 on clothing is outrageous. By my calculations, that’s what it costs to outfit Barack Obama for a campaign when we account for his apparently expensive taste. Suppose you think it is outrageous, but you also think that the clothes are necessary, work-related expenses. What are we supposed to make of Palin’s bill? It’s sickeningly higher.

That’s the real point: I doubt any of us want to see frumpy, sickly candidates. But she spent so much – much, much more than would be reasonable for a man, even a man with exquisite and expensive taste. We can believe either that men’s professional clothing costs far, far less than women’s clothing. Or we can believe that she went absolutely overboard, far beyond what would be reasonable. In light of the pretty staggering cost of men’s clothing and Nina Rastogi’s failure to spend anywhere close to $150,000, I think we have to take the second option: she’s greedy. That’s the problem.