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Palin's Plans Led To Spat With McCain

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The New York Times

Published: November 6, 2008

PHOENIX - As a top adviser in Sen. John McCain's campaign tells the story, it was bad enough that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska unwittingly scheduled, and then took, a prank telephone call from a Canadian comedian posing as the president of France. Far worse, she failed to inform her ticketmate.

Palin, who laughingly told the prankster that she could be president "maybe in eight years," was the catalyst for a civil war between her campaign and McCain's. "I think it was a difficult relationship," said one top McCain campaign official, who, like almost all others interviewed, asked to remain anonymous. For her part, Palin said, "there is absolutely no diva in me."

The disputes centered in large part on the Republican National Committee's $150,000 wardrobe for Palin and her family, but also on what McCain advisers considered Palin's lack of preparation for her interview with Katie Couric of CBS News and her refusal to take advice from McCain's campaign.

But behind those episodes may be a greater subtext: anger within the McCain camp that Palin harbored political ambitions beyond 2008.

As late as Tuesday night, Palin was pushing to deliver her own speech just before McCain's concession speech.

Aides advised Palin that she should buy three suits for the Republican National Convention and three additional suits for the campaign. The budget: $20,000 to $25,000.

Instead, bills came in to the Republican National Committee for about $150,000, including charges of $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue.

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