Earlier this week Erick Ericson and Dr. Melissa Clouthier weighed in on how some CPAC attendees dressed and behaved this year. They really set off quite a firestorm. Everyone has an opinion, that’s for sure.
I threw in my two cents briefly in an update to a long, rambling post about CPAC and my TSA experience. Then Patrick zeroed in on Tina Korbe’s skirt. (Korbe’s skirt probably wasn’t too short – sitting down can make a skirt hike up and seem shorter than it really is. Had there been a different camera angle it wouldn’t have been noticeable.) Patrick’s choice of words was less than desirable. There was some back and forth between blogs that’s getting a bit hard to follow, until Stacy McCain followed up with a long post of his own giving some advice to Patrick. Now Politico has devoted some space to the debate, and Stacy’s under attack from some conservatives.
If you follow the first link to Stacy, and read the entire post, you should realize the point of his post wasn’t so much to pick on Korbe – it was to get traffic while offering advice to another blogger. It seems to have worked, at least the traffic part.
My advice for future CPAC attendees is to dress the way you would for any business conference. Save the night club clothes for a night club. Although there’s a sort of carnival atmosphere about the conference, it’s still what most would consider a business event, and one’s dress and behavior should reflect that.
A couple of real world examples from my own personal experience:
Last spring I had to attend an insurance conference for my other job. It took place at a resort in the Adirondacks and everything was right there on site – the meetings, lunch, dinner, parties, you name it. At a cocktail reception before dinner one evening, a woman I don’t know was wearing a very revealing dress and people were talking about her behind her back. What some people were saying about her was downright vicious. (Much worse than anything I’ve read in the blogs on the CPAC debate.) I don’t know if any of it is true, but this is how people are out there in the real world. Melissa Clouthier’s advice to women on dress and decorum, I believe, is good advice. (More on that here.)
Oh, and to the guys who just want to “hook up,” be careful when doing so at any events related to your day job. During another conference in the fall I had to fire a marketing rep for exactly that reason. It was “behavior unbecoming to the company image” and I was given no choice but to let him go. He had a few other issues, but that was the final straw. I happen to think it was the right decision.
Some people think this is a silly controversy, and perhaps it is. But the last thing someone wants to do in this economy is lose out on a job because of things entirely under one’s own control. Maybe a few people have taken some of that good advice out there to heart. If so, none of this was a waste of time or effort. Maybe we should all just try to be a bit less judgmental, myself included.
Update: Poh Diaries linked – thanks!
Tags: controversy, CPAC, dress code, real world, Stacy McCain, Tina Korbe
Rule of thumb, in any sort of professional setting, don’t dress in a fashion likely to have you mistaken for a Telemundo weather girl.
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
I agree!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Sounds as if a few attendees thought it was still the “good old days”, when going to a distant conference or convention meant also getting drunk, raising hell and “hooking up”.
In those days, a woman at one of those things was usually there for that exact purpose, to give the conventioneers a good time.
For a profit, of course.
Even today, if I saw a woman at a convention in a dress that reached all the way down to bottom of her butt, I would – probably unfairly – assume she was there for reasons other than the actual business at hand.
It’s human nature, so the message is:
If you’re going to a big convention, don’t dress like a prostitute if you don’t want to be treated like one. And for the men… Don’t turn into a drunken ass looking to score… those days are long gone.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
In other words:
Don’t act like a Washington politican.
Like or Dislike:
3 
1
[...] whole debate is silly to begin with. Thanks to Erick Erickson for getting it started. But I guess since his candidate [...]
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Thanks for the linkin… (i think…)
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
As nearly as I can see, Miss Korbe dressed more conservatively than she aould have had she been a news anchor on Fox News Channel. Gretchen Carlson, Juliet Huddy, Alisyn Camarotta and the Five’s Andrea Tantaros are all put out there to show off their legs. Miss Korbe was at least wearing a long-sleeved blouse and jacket, while the Fox News babes have a tendency to wear sleeveless dresses, in New York City, in the middle of the winter.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
In other words, to be taken seriously and respected as a woman with morals, don’t dress like Sarah Palin.
Like or Dislike:
1 
2
[...] ConservatoryDa Tech GuyLittle Miss AttilaThoughts & RantingsMelissa ClouthierThe POH DiariesThe (Perhaps Slightly Less) Lonely ConservativeGod’s Own CrunkThe POH DiariesGoldfish and ClownsThe ConservatoryFishersville MikeSubject to [...]
Like or Dislike:
0 
0