Look at
Piper and Trig.
LOOK AT PIPER dressed like a princess.
LOOK AT TRIG dressed like an elephant. Awesome. Just awesome.
Governor Palin donned a pumpkin foulard, in a nod to Halloween today. No need for a costume on her part. She is already coming as Sarah Palin.
Chuckles aside, you can see what she and the Palin family are trying to do, don't you?
They're trying to regain the August 29th roll-out narrative about them, their values, and their lifestyle: just ordinary Americans, who rose up to the highest reaches of power, but are still 'just folks' who like other just folks wear jeans, and go out together
en famille.
This tells me that Governor Palin continues to be haunted (good word for
Halloween) by the spectre of that $150,000 wardrobe snitch to the press. I think the American people have moved on, and it only and truly matters to her critics who use it to batter her over the head, as they would with anything, but Palin is savvy.
The one thing they cannot really take away from her is her authenticity. She knows that pricetag is actually rather cheap given her lack of polish for a politician on the national stage, but that during a time of economic crisis, it looks like a double-standard.
See, Americans have this problem with rich people.
Usually it just bubbles under the surface, in times of fat. But in times of lean, the richies get it between the eyes in this country. You saw that vividly with the populist "Wall Street fat cat" phrase constantly thrown around to condemn those living just a more high-octane version of the American dream.
(Incidentally, I am a bit of a populist, who has a tendency to view blue-collar, working folk with rosy-tinted glasses, because they live lives and have values I deeply admire. But I am not a populist Republican -- in fact, I dislike that kind of politician or one who uses that kind of mindset, like
Governor Mike Huckabee. Populists have shown themselves to be the most dangerous kinds of politicians in history and I even regret that Governor Palin sometimes takes a leaf from that rhetoric page)
It comes as some sort of blessing that the wardrobe leak came AFTER many weeks of campaigning, when the American public had already (rightly or wrongly) formulated a vision of who Sarah Palin is.
If it had been leaked in the first weeks of September, it might've either ruined her and driven a 'hypocrite' narrative.
Well, this post was intended for Piper (and baby Trig) and her beautiful choice of Halloween outfit, which actually I don't think is a costume. She just likes dressing like a fairy tale princess.
Remember when her mum was being sworn in as
Governor of Alaska? Whilst her eldest sister went looking as if she were going to the mall, Piper went in a tiara and satin dress.
Love it. Go Piper! Piper Palin '44.
ADDED: Oh. I realise now who Piper's bone-coloured wide sweep collar reminds me of. A Venetian doge!
This famous portrait of
Doge Leonardo Loredan hangs in the
National Gallery in London, and I remember being fascinated when younger, when being taken to see it.
I marvelled at the sumptuous garment the Doge was wearing, and realised even at my young age, that he must've been deeply aware of his presence, and what he wanted to relay to the Ages about himself.
That's what people who are self-aware do. They don't just protect their image for today. They insist it be consistent, for History is a harsh judge, one moreover, which judges for eternity.
Palin, both Sarah and yes even little Piper, somehow get that too.
IN THE COMMENTS: JSU brings up a giggle-inducing cynical point, which you know, if true is rather good.
Vic, I'm surprised you didn't pick up on this:
Orange is the PUMA color. McCain wore an orange tie, too, at a crucially symbolic juncture.
Only the highest practioners of the art of politics speak in "code". Actually, Senator Obama does it all the time (notice the first time he ever wore jeans whilst stumping was two days after Governor Palin famously did). I'm not speaking of the outwardly showy kind of code, like Senator Lamar Alexander's
woodsy plaid shirts (read, "I'm a regular guy"). But code which passes unnoticed, and unremarked upon even by those whose living it is to decipher such things.
If this is true, and not just a Halloween message, but a silent one to the
Orange-Pantsuits-in-Exile in the crowd, she's a bareknuckled pol with instincts we've rarely seen at this level.
UPDATE: I almost don't want to add this, but I have to. Koz Kids are attacking this appearance by the Palin family, and reading more "code" than even we can dream up here.
I refuse to link to this direclty, to give them traffic, but here is the link.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/31/154551/41
They Dressed Trig as an Elephant
by stef
Fri Oct 31, 2008 at 01:14:30 PM PDT
Is that cool? Making your baby into a party mascot?
Piper is a Snow Princess. Her mother is the Ice Queen of Mean. And scary Uncle Mac escaped from Night of the Living Dead.
The replies included wondering if Governor Palin dressed up her son as "Dumbo" because he is a Down Syndrome baby...
Sigh.
But one other person went even farther. Much much farther.
Seriously? This is how people think? How twisted. It's HALLOWEEN. Give it a rest, losers.
Labels: Candidates' Families, Craps-n-Giggles, Holiday
