After
Posted on 01/27/2004 4:11:03 PM PST by Libloather
Edwards gets a big-boy cut
By JOHN ZEBROWSKI, Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 27, 2004 10:57AM EST
Just two weeks before the Jan. 18 caucuses, Iowa voters had pretty much decided John Edwards wasn't their guy for president.
Edwards had certainly tried hard to convince them he was the best chance to beat George W. Bush in November.
To no avail. It was as if the people of Iowa had begun to hide behind the couch when he knocked on their doors.
Then Edwards surged and the pundits scrambled to find an explanation: his positive campaign, his centrist policies, his working-class roots. All plausible reasons. But they have missed something crucial.
He changed his hair.
Seriously. Look at pictures of him before the New Year and then leading up to the Iowa vote. That boyish swoop of chestnut over his forehead, sometimes nearly touching his eyebrows or settling on his collar, is gone, replaced by a slight wave that leaves his forehead exposed. It's a subtle change, but an important one. With a few snips of a stylist's clippers, Edwards took a step toward neutralizing one of his greatest weaknesses.
"He went from a boy to a grown man in one sweep," observed Roi Parker, who owns R.O.I. Salon in Raleigh, where the new coif is a favorite topic of conversation. "He went from fun, free, fashion-forward hair to in-the-office, behind-the-desk, running-for-something hair."
One of the big obstacles Edwards needs to overcome if he is to become president is that he doesn't really look like a 50-year-old man. This is seen as a liability for someone seeking to lead a country at war. In a "60 Minutes" interview last month, the first question to Edwards from correspondent Lesley Stahl was about his youthful appearance. In a voice-over she added that the reason his campaign ran black-and-white ads in Iowa is because they made him look older.
Rush Limbaugh loves calling Edwards "the Breck Girl," a nickname conceived by the White House, according to the New York Times. The comparison of Edwards to the bright-eyed models in the 1960s ads for Breck shampoo makes a stinging point: That the senator and his lovely hair are not tough enough to be president.
The Edwards campaign handed out bottles of Breck to the crowd when he announced his candidacy, but the moment of lightness was only temporary. Now that Edwards is back among the major contenders, the Breck Girl dig has returned.
About that new hair
Roger Salazar, the campaign's national spokesman, said the best way for Edwards to answer questions about his youthful appearance is for him to be out on the trail talking to as many people as possible, where, he said, they can see he's the best candidate. This is what fueled the Iowa surge, he said.
"If all you look at is a 10-second clip, it's easy to say he looks young," he said. "Throughout his entire life he's gotten this. When he went into courtrooms the other lawyers said, 'Who's this guy?' "
Asked about the change in Edwards' hairstyle, Salazar said the new hairstyle isn't a political move. "He's just getting haircuts more often."
Is that it? Throughout his rise first as a lawyer and then a politician, Edwards has maintained some variation on the forehead swoosh. It's the hair of many young Southern men, a style that fits perfectly with an oxford shirt, khakis, docksiders and a pair of sunglasses dangling around the neck on a string. It's a dominant cut in the stands at N.C. State-UNC ball games.
Now, though, Edwards has adopted the style of an older generation, a look Parker said is requested by men trying to appear more conservative.
Image has long been a major sideshow of presidential politics. Bill Clinton's hair was rumored to have been frosted in 1992 to make the 46-year-old seem more presidential, while Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole were supposed to have gone the other way, washing away their gray in a bid to appear younger. When a German image consultant speculated that Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was dying his hair, Schroeder threatened to take him to court.
A matter of image
Up in New Hampshire, Stephen Abbott, a Manchester, N.H.-based political consultant, has followed the nips and tucks of the major candidates as they tweak their images to win today's primary. Sen. John Kerry, criticized for his wooden and imperious manner on the stump, now sports open collars and V-neck sweaters, and pumps his fist during speeches. Gen. Wesley Clark (disastrously) tried on an argyle sweater after it became apparent female voters were not flocking to the former supreme allied commander of NATO.
In politics, Abbott said, image is nothing if there isn't substance to back it up. But, he noted, if people perceive a candidate negatively -- too young, too stiff, too angry -- it becomes much harder to get them to pay attention to the substance. Just ask former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who a year ago was considered a mellow guy. Or former Vice President Al Gore, whose many attempts to get his image straight in 2000 (think earth tones and Naomi Wolf) left many voters wondering who he really was.
"An image problem can have a significant impact on how a candidate is perceived," Abbott said. "If Edwards is perceived to be someone barely old enough for the office it can really hurt him."
If it becomes a major distraction, he added, the campaign must act immediately to fix it. "But even a political consultant can't add wrinkles."
...is his leftist tendencies. Hard to do with a pair of scissors...
After
But he has Cuh...hoorage to support the war.
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