THE RED SHOES

The big story on the campaign trail today is that the trail led to Neiman/Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, where the RNC reportedly bought some new clothes for their vice presidential candidate. Apparently they felt her hockey-mom image needed a little something extra – about $150,000 extra.

The RNC did mention that at the conclusion of the campaign the clothes would go to charity, though they didn’t specify which one. I think that’s a bit unfair. They bought the clothes for Gov. Palin; the least they can do is let her keep them. Saturday Night Live let her keep her cue cards. What’s the big deal?

The heart of this story, however, goes deeper than a big price tag. In campaign terms, it isn’t really all that much money. The campaign will certainly spend more than $150 million – so $150,000 is only one tenth of one per cent. That seems...almost justifiable.

But America is now suffering through its worst financial crisis in seventy-five years. Hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs, their homes, their futures. Yet the Republicans, the party which espouses family values, casually spends money as if we were all living at the Ritz. How could they make such a phenomenal blunder?

I think this act reveals an enormous disconnect between this Party and the people. It reveals a mind-set that says, this isn’t real money. It isn’t our money. It’s just campaign money. I can imagine the person who authorized the buy saying, “What’s the problem?”

The spirit of we’re-all-in-this-together that typified the Great Depression is sadly missing in 2008. It isn’t communism. It isn’t socialism. It is a recognition that we have common goals, and that our best hope for achieving them is team work. In effect, we are in this together.