Months of bubbling frustration with Sarah Palin from within the McCain campaign finally exploded in the wake of their ticket's crushing defeat as Republican insiders began making embarrassing allegations about the Alaskan Governor.

Unnamed McCain aides have told the media that Palin wasn't aware that Africa was a continent, and her family behaved like a band of "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus (an upscale American clothing store) from coast to coast."

Newsweek magazine, which had insider access to the McCain/Palin ticket on the agreement not to report anything until after the election, said that Palin spent well beyond the US$150,000 on clothing that was previously reported.

Other McCain insiders told news outlets that Palin, the former mayor of small town Wasilla, Alaska, could not name the three countries in the North American Free Trade Agreement -- Canada, the U.S. and Mexico -- and that was from the governor who promoted negotiating experience with Canada throughout the campaign.

Jennifer Skalka, editor of The Hotline on Call, a political reporting blog, told CTV Newsnet that significant issues between the John McCain and Sarah Palin camps are just now coming to light.

"Obviously there was a lot of friction between them, and between their camps going into the home stretch,' she said Thursday.

"The losing campaign needs to figure out how to spin the loss and they'll hang a lot of it around her neck . . . but it comes right back to John McCain picking her without vetting her.

"She was very green, she was very inexperienced."

The embarrassing revelations come on top of a prank phone call played on Palin last week by a Quebec comedy duo who pretended to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The prank, which showed Palin to be naïve and ill-informed, lit up the Internet on the weekend before Election Day and reportedly became a source of incredible tension between the already-dueling McCain and Palin camps. An aide to Palin, Steve Biegun, gave the call the go-ahead without contacting McCain's handlers or the U.S. State Department.

The Los Angeles Times has reported that McCain's top strategist, Steve Schmidt, organized a conference call after the prank and demanded to know why anyone would have agreed to the phone call and failed to clear it with top staff.

Biegun took responsibility.

"I was fooled," he told the L.A. Times. "No one's going to beat me up more than I beat myself up for setting up the governor like that."

More embarrassing revelations

The leaked stories about Palin are appearing in publications such as Newsweek, the New York Times, and even right-wing Fox News.

Among the revelations:

• Insiders say they become queasy after realizing she was desperately unqualified and ill-prepared.
• They say they tried to bring her up to speed on the political issues, but she refused to make any preparations leading into the devastating interview with CBS's Katie Couric.
• After that interview, Palin threw angry temper tantrums, which involved her throwing paperwork and making some aides cry.
• She met two senior male aides in her hotel room wearing only a towel.
• A senior aide told Newsweek that she was told to buy three suits and hire a stylist before the Republican national Convention, but instead Palin went on a shopping spree in costly stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.
• Palin's husband, Todd Palin, received between US$20,000 and US$40,000 worth of clothing.

During the campaign, Palin's youngest daughter, seven-year-old Piper, was photographed carrying a US$790 Louis Vuitton bag.

Newsweek said that the purchases were provided by a wealthy donor, who was flabbergasted when he actually saw the bills. Aides also told the magazine that Palin staffers were instructed to buy her clothes on their credit cards, which only came to light last week when they went to the McCain campaign for more than $20,000 worth of reimbursements.

The allegations are in striking contrast from the self-proclaimed "hockey mom" who tried to blue-collar America as a common-sense, small-government spending politician.

But Palin insiders deny the claims, saying the governor was shocked by the high-prices of the clothing and that no aides were instructed to use their own credit cards.

On Wednesday in Phoenix, Palin said: "There is absolutely no diva in me."

Regardless, a Republican party lawyer is reportedly on his way to Alaska to inventory and recover the clothes still in the Palins' possession.

Election night tensions

When it became apparent that Obama had won the U.S. election, Palin met up with McCain at a Phoenix hotel with a concession speech in hand that she wanted to deliver.

She was told by McCain top two aides that a speech by her would be inappropriate as vice-president nominees do not traditionally speak on election night, which she reportedly did not take well.

By election night, the relationship between Palin and McCain had deteriorated so much that the pair were hardly talking according to aides.

"I think it was a difficult relationship," a top McCain campaign official told the New York Times. "McCain talked to her occasionally."