The Hair Controversy

I was listening to my local “liberal” talk radio, KTLK 1150, when their new drive-time host “Mr. K” started discussing the controversy over John Edward’s haircuts

Apparently, he has a Hollywood stylist fly out to him and cut his hair, travel expenses and all it totals $400.00 a pop. He charged two of them, surprise-surprise, to the organization that is trying to get him elected, his campaign. Now apparently people are pissed off that he didn’t pay for them personally, and his campaign already has said it was a mistake and John is already going to pay for them. All of this capitulation makes it seem like something bad happened here. But what exactly is the problem?

Whether or not he has a political campaign he has to have a haircut, therefore he should pay for it.

Wrong, while it is true that he always needs a haircut, the extraordinary cost of the haircut is completely the result of his campaign. His haircut could have cost him $15.00 at Fantastic Sam’s but why would he endanger his campaign by allowing an inexperienced, low-paid, low-skilled, hair stylist to touch his hair. A bad hair cut could literally RUIN his campaign. Now I’m not endorsing our candidate centered politics, just the opposite, they are to blame completely.

Candidate centered politics forces all of the attention on the personality and charisma of the presidential candidates. This phenomenon gave JFK the debate victory over Nixon (Maybe its not such a bad thing…). Radio listeners thought Nixon won handedly, but anyone who watched on TV saw that Nixon was sweating, and had a five-o-clock shadow. Compared to the made-up JFK it was easy to see who America should trust, if you watched the debate on TV you had a better chance to think JFK won.

From that point on looking good was a necessity for candidates, some blame TV, but it’s obviously the American public’s fault. Our need to follow a handsome charismatic leader is exactly what handed Bush the Whitehouse in ’04, and even worse than that it can obscure the issues in any campaign. When we talk about John Edwards’ hair or whether or not Kerry looks French, we’re feeding into the monster of candidate centered politics.

Such attention to looks and photogenic quality breeds the atmosphere where a $400.00 dollar haircut seems like a wise investment. But paradoxically, Candidate centered politics also engendered this news story and all the outrage it may cause. Because we are so concerned with the personalities of our leaders, as opposed to their political ideas, we report on trivial superfluous details, like the price of their hair-cut. As opposed to all the good reasons to hate John Edwards.

1. Voted for Iraq
2. Voted for the Patriot Act
3. He didn’t kick Cheney’s ass in the VP debates
4. He's a LOSER
   

Those are all great, ideological reasons to dislike John Edwards, and each of them is more convincing than his hair bill.