The in-fighting goes a lot deeper than bickering over the Veep's wardrobe. The New York Times has some juicy details from anonymous top advisers in the McCain and Palin camps, who seem to have been waging a divisive battle of their own as Barack Obama rode the presidential unicorn to living sainthood. Deets include Palin's desire to steal McCain's concession thunder, leaked comments from both sides that the other side is full of whack jobs, and Palin's forehead-smackingly clueless response to her foreign-leader prank call.

First, NYT details the snafu that led to the faux Sarkozy prank call:

As a top adviser in Senator John McCain’s now-imploded 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, the adviser said, she failed to inform her ticketmate about her rogue diplomacy.

As late as Tuesday night, a McCain adviser said, Ms. Palin was pushing to deliver her own speech just before Mr. McCain’s concession speech, even though vice-presidential nominees do not traditionally speak on election night. But Ms. Palin met up with Mr. McCain with text in hand. She was told no by Mark Salter, one of Mr. McCain’s closest advisers, and Steve Schmidt, Mr. McCain’s top strategist.

I would have loved to see that. Read it to me, Sarah—I'll listen!

Graphic by Jason Mogavero.

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Bye!

According to E! Online's Marc Malkin, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt of MTV "reality" show The Hills support McCain, Palin—and gay marriage. "I think, you know, whoever you decide to marry—boys, girls, whatever you like—it's up to you," Montag said.

Pratt implies that his support of gays stems from their ability to make his girlfriend appear more attractive—thus reinforcing his own heterosexuality. "Heidi's hair and makeup people are my favorite people in the world and they happen to be gay," he says. "So if they wanna go marry each other, good for them."

Palin pointed out that it's onler her fifth week in the national spotlight, and she showed a marked improvement from last week's showing. While in the Katie Couric interviews, Palin appeared uninformed and unprepared, here, she appeared uninformed and prepared. She learned how to bullshit, and boy, did she lather lipstick on that pig.

Actual pro-woman candidate Biden was fine throughout, but he only managed to let his particular strengths shine through at the end. His personal story, fuck all politics, was the debate's one real moment, and it was the only thing that could silence Palin's persistent posturing about being more middle class, accessible, relatable, and real. Biden has a record, too, Palin, but he also has this quirky talent of being able to answer the questions that are asked of him. In the end, Biden picked up considerable steam. [Live-blogging onlooker The Sexist, on the other hand, found even simple subject-verb constructions difficult as the event wound down].

Throughout, both candidates got caught in that same political eddy—they both kept (1) trying to out-Mainstreet, out-Middle Class, and out-kitchen table each other while (2) trying to name-drop for their presidential honies as much as possible. The reason VP debates are so fascinating is because the two candidates form the bizarro-world of the Presidential election—the tangential side-show to the main event. But it's also why they can get annoying and irrelevant. After the first 90-minute presidential debate, I wasn't sure how much I wanted to sit through another one; now, I'm a little bit hungry for more of that Obama/McCain stability.