JOHN BOLTON FOR PRESIDENT? PULEEZ!!!NO…NO….NO….SEE NOTE
I LIKE AND RESPECT AND ADMIRE JOHN BOLTON…OKAY? BUT HE IS NOT….REPEAT NOT….A VIABLE CANDIDATE UNLESS THE REPUBLICANS WANT TO DRINK KOOLAID….HERE IS A CHANCE TO TAKE BACK AMERICA……AND WE HAVE TO FIND A “GIPPER”…..AND HE/SHE IS OUT THERE BUT IT IS NOT JOHN BOLTON…..RSK
By RUTH GRAHAM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704380504575530393190488942.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_lifeStyle
![[mustache_illo]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OD-AB048_mustac_G_20101008005255.jpg)
Illustration by Stephen KroningerHAIR APPARENT: Mustaches worked for leaders in the 18th century. Will John Bolton’s look grow on the American public?
The United States has not had a president with facial hair since a clean-shaven Woodrow Wilson won the election of 1912 and replaced the mustachioed William Howard Taft. Enter former United Nations ambassador John Bolton, who hinted he may run for office in 2012. Is America ready for its first hairy-lipped commander in chief in a century?
Mustaches have experienced a pop-culture renaissance in recent years. Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Matt Damon have sported them on the red carpet. Mustachioed models have walked the runway at fashion shows by Jean Paul Gaultier and Junya Watanabe. There are mustache clubs, mustache contests and mustache parties. In certain corners of Brooklyn, it’s as common an accessory as dark-frame glasses and an iPhone.
Notable ‘Staches
Bad Guys
Getty ImagesJoseph Stalin
Getty ImagesAdolf Hitler
Associated PressSaddam Hussein
Old Presidents
Getty ImagesWilliam Howard Taft
Getty ImagesTheodore Roosevelt
Getty ImagesGrover Cleveland
Today’s Mustachioed Politicos
Getty ImagesSen. Roland Burris
Associated PressGov. David Paterson
Getty ImagesGov. John Hoeven (with his daughter)
In Washington and on Wall Street, however, it’s a different story. According to Allan Peterkin, the author of “One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair,” whiskers are taboo in arenas in which faddishness is frowned on and the appearance of transparency is prized.
“Facial hair is the kiss of death in politics,” Mr. Peterkin said. “The generalization I’d make about modern facial hair is it’s playful rebellion. And do you want a politician who’s into playful rebellion?” Roland Burris (D., Ill.) is the only one of 100 senators to sport a mustache, and he’s an unelected appointee who will step down in January. The list of House members with facial hair is somewhat longer; a geographically diverse 41 by this reporter’s count, including Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), David Obey (D., Wis.), and Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.). Last year, New York Governor David Paterson shaved a short-lived beard into a short-lived mustache.
But the modern presidential face has remained staunchly bare—and given the long odds against Mr. Bolton, he’s unlikely to change that. Mustachioed Republican Thomas Dewey lost the presidential elections of 1944 and 1948. When a photo of President Obama last year suggested he might have had a day-old growth on his upper lip, the sparse shadow made headlines and quickly disappeared.
Facial hair in the White House hasn’t always seemed so silly. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison all wore full beards. Presidents Martin van Buren and Chester Arthur sported wild sideburns. Presidents Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft wore bushy mustaches.
For most of human history, facial hairstyles had been constrained as much by the inconvenience of shaving as by fads. That changed when King Camp Gillette debuted his disposable razor blade in 1903. By 1906, sales had reached 500,000. That same year, W.G. Shockey patented a wind-up safety razor, forbearer to the electric razor now used by about 20% of male shavers. A new industry arose to convince Americans that a clean face was next to godliness and a concurrent hygiene movement disparaged facial hair as unsanitary. When the U.S. entered World War I, the government ordered 3.5 million razors and 36 million blades for its soldiers.
The mustache remains popular abroad, especially in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia. But in American minds, the most prominent 20th-century mustache-wearers here are Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein. The mustache now signifies villainy combined with a 1970s “swinger bisexual porn star” association, as Mr. Peterkin put it.
It’s those connotations that experts believe is holding the mustache back. Beards fare somewhat better as the style of the intellectual, the hippie or the revolutionary. Unfortunately for Mr. Bolton, a Republican, those are widely considered Democratic traits. First impressions matter in politics, especially in the early stages of a campaign.
Gabriel Lenz, a political science professor at MIT who has studied the effect of candidate appearance on voter behavior, said, “When [voters] don’t know much about a person, they use their faces to judge them.”
So is a prospective candidate with a slightly off-kilter appearance better off altering or embracing it? Maxine Albert, a New York-based image consultant who has worked with politicians, said it’s better to rip off the Band-Aid, so to speak. “I’d advise [Mr. Bolton] to get rid of it,” she said. “The mustache puts something between him and the audience.”
But Michael Lewis, a professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School who has studied political campaigns from a marketing perspective, urged caution. “For a Republican, the ideal positioning space is to be the rugged outdoorsman, like Reagan with a horse and boots and hat,” he said. “A trip to the beauty parlor doesn’t really fit in.”
Jay Della Valle, the 31-year-old chairman of the American Mustache Institute and director of a documentary about the hipster mustache trend, agrees. “John Bolton wouldn’t even be John Bolton without his mustache,” he said. “It’s his secret weapon.”
That may be. Mr. Peterkin, the beard historian who is Canadian and wasn’t familiar with Mr. Bolton’s appearance, had only complimentary things to say after first viewing his photo. “It’s a nice one! There’s a bit of Mark Twain,” he said. “[Voters] may harken back to Taft, and other Americans who had fine mustaches and beards. There’s something classical about it.”
That’s good news for Mr. Bolton, who said he grew his mustache 40 years ago and is sticking with it: “I’ve never shaved it off,” he said, “and I don’t intend to.”
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