Sarah Palin as Imelda Marcos

Republicans this year are the Gang That Couldn’t Campaign Straight.

The latest major goof: Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe.

Palin was picked because she’s a frumpy, self-described Hockey Mom, with a folksy style and wardrobe from Wal-Mart. She wasn’t corrupted by Washington power, money, and morals.

Then the geniuses running McCain’s campaign dressed her up for a role in the sequel to the movie “The Devil Wears Prada.” (A female friend of mine dragged me to that move and it turns out it was surprisingly good; especially the part after my popcorn ran out and I nodded off.)

I figure it’s because McCain’s advisers are rich boys from Yale and Princeton and Harvard, whose moms and wives sport $150,000 wardrobes. So they figured that was the way to grab voters’ attention.

Now Palin has become the GOP’s Imelda Marcos. You remember Imelda, the Steel Butterfly. When her dictator-husband, Ferdinand, was thrown out of office and exiled during the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines, it was revealed that Imelda owned a vast wardrobe, including “508 floor-length gowns, 888 handbags and 71 pairs of sunglasses” — and the infamous 1,060 pairs of shoes.

Come to think of it, the GOP election geniuses must be consulting with Imelda, who’s over there still in the Philippines, bravely enduring, and winning, corruption trials. McCain’s boys must figure that, as she and Ferdinand squatted in office 20 years, she must know something about staying in power.