Mein Hair

Panties were seriously bunched earlier this month when right-wing pundit and delicate flower Ann Coulter all but called presidential candidate John Edwards a “faggot.” It’s important when you’re dealing with someone who’s as subtle as Coulter to consider her words carefully. Did she mean to suggest John Edwards was gay? Of course not. She meant to imply that he was a sissy, a hair-spray jockey, a pretty boy, a Breck girl.

That charge sticks, alas, on account of Edwards’ marvelous man-bouffant, the beautiful collegiate tousle that has remained on his noggin into his 50s. The brunet Edwards’ hair is right-parted and left-leaning, gleaming and full-bodied and curried like a Saudi sultan’s racehorse. Edwards is, in most respects, a spectacular candidate for office: smart, funny, disciplined, a devoted family man with a compelling personal story. But he’s perhaps just a titch over the line of photo-geniality. In an age when small things can be telescoped into defining moments, the YouTube video of Edwards fixing his hair to the tune of “I Feel Pretty” (for two full minutes!) is all-but-summary judgment.

The irony of Coulter’s remark is that at the same event--the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. (try the out-of-wedlock baby, it’s delicious)--she appeared to endorse former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Just the week before, a Romney campaign document leaked to The Boston Globe revealed his handlers’ fretting about their guy’s too-perfect hair. And it’s true: Romney’s hair looks like it’s auditioning for Mt. Rushmore.

Another campaign season, another chance to ponder the delicate mysteries of presidential hair. It’s debatable whether we’re more obsessed with candidates’ appearances--Adlai Stevenson’s shoe and Richard Nixon’s sweaty lip argue otherwise--but there can be no doubting that hair is a major electoral dynamic. I can’t imagine there is much mystery here: The electorate are beaten about the head and shoulders (oops, sorry) with competing narratives, negative ads and the withering mendacity of the professional political class. In the end, if they vote at all, they vote largely on the basis of surface realities, which are the only ones they regard as verifiable.

Here are the rules of presidential hairodynamics:

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good: There is a bright line between good grooming and fussy metrosexuality, and clearly, Romney and Edwards are way on the other side of that line. In my mind the worst recent offender was John Kerry, whose blow-dried super-doo belonged on an L.A. weatherman. Hi, I’m Dick Lightning, and here’s your weekend forecast. . . .

There is a partisan corollary to this rule: Republicans use Brylcreem; Democrats use product.

Rule No. 2: No pink pates. We’ve not elected a bald, or even balding, president since Eisenhower, and we’re not about to start now. Consider, Rudolph Giuliani was reassuring after 9/11; John McCain is a real war hero. Both lost in a straw poll at CPAC to follicularly forested Romney, and what precisely has Romney done? Between thin credentials and thin hair, choose the former.

Rule No. 3: Live Free or Dye. Republicans’ favorite fantasy, not counting the Strategic Defense Initiative, was that Ronald Reagan didn’t dye his hair, as if a 75-year-old man with coal-black hair was the most natural thing in the world. My God, people, he was an actor. But at least Reagan looked good. Rep. Duncan Hunter of El Cajon looks like a black felt-tip marker. If you must touch up, do it Grecian Formula style, very gradually.

Which brings me to Rule No. 4: Don’t go changing. Remember when the world freaked out and chasms of space and time opened up because Al Gore wore a brown suit? People theorized endlessly about Gore’s sartorial and tonsorial choices. After each of the debates there were gleeful chatroom roundelays about the degree to which Gore was or was not combing over. Candidates have to lock in their look early--preferably, about middle school--because, well, if he can flip-flop on hairstyles, he could sell us out to Ahmadinejad, couldn’t he?

Rule No. 5: Let your hair stand for integrity: In American politics, there is a comb-over ceiling. Not only are comb-overs deceitful--a sure sign that the over-comber cannot be trusted--they’re ineffective. Joe Biden, meanwhile, is bumping up against the hair-restoration ceiling. Trent Lott would love to run, but he knows better than to throw his rug into the ring.

Of course it’s a stupid way to pick a chief executive, and great hair is in no way dispositive. George W. Bush has hair so authentic you can practically smell the mesquite. And he’s a flippin’ disaster. Dennis Kucinich is the most substantial candidate running; his hair looks like a piece of old inner tube.

For Democrats, there’s good news: Barack Obama, who is the first African American with a real shot at the Oval Office, seems to have retained all his hair, and he wears it in a tight-cropped natural style that is safe and unremarkable. That’s a good thing. With all this country has to deal with, I just don’t think we’re ready for dreadlocks.

Come to think of it, I’ve got presidential hair. That’s right, America, vote for me. My hair is tan, rested and ready.