Palin & Politics: The Underlying Truth

[August1991]

What does Palin mean for politics?

Well, it's the same as the choice of JFK or Ronald Reagan. Only the beautiful need apply. Henceforth, the criteria for electoral office will be physical beauty.

This strikes me as so obvious that I'm surprised no one notices it.

Obama is thin, not fat. Margaret Thatcher was a blonde. Stephen Harper has a full head of hair. Sarah Palin has dreamy brown eyes.

In this naive age of photography and television, we now choose our leaders according to their physical beauty, or physical features. The ugly need not apply.

Who wants to look at an ugly leader, however intelligent or competent, year in and year out?

Taft was the fattest president - at one point he weighed about 335 pounds - but Wilson was uglier. Take a look at his teeth in this photo.

Now look at this photo.

Guess which one is the future of democratic politics.

[Riverwind]

Guess which one is the future of democratic politics.

This presidential election has become a celebrity contest instead of a contest of ideas. In a celebrity contest looks matter. McCain turned it into celebrity contest by picking Palin because he felt it was the only way to compete with Obama.

The same dynamics are not at work in Canada (Chrietien has to be one of the ugliest people alive yet was re-elected many times even when competing against better looking opponents). I am not even convinced that the same dynamics would show up in the next presidential race. It really depends on who ends up running.

[M.Dancer]

Now look at this photo.

Ruby should have been tied for first.

[GostHacked]

This presidential election has become a celebrity contest instead of a contest of ideas. In a celebrity contest looks matter. McCain turned it into celebrity contest by picking Palin because he felt it was the only way to compete with Obama.

The same dynamics are not at work in Canada (Chrietien has to be one of the ugliest people alive yet was re-elected many times even when competing against better looking opponents). I am not even convinced that the same dynamics would show up in the next presidential race. It really depends on who ends up running.

This is why I stated in another thread that if people are voting for an image, then be ready for a total lack of substance.

[August1991]

The same dynamics are not at work in Canada (Chrietien has to be one of the ugliest people alive yet was re-elected many times even when competing against better looking opponents). I am not even convinced that the same dynamics would show up in the next presidential race. It really depends on who ends up running.

On the contray, Chretien had striking, clear blue eyes and younger, he had an agile body. Like many modern politicians and TV personalities, his head was out of proportion to his body.

In this US election, it is odd that both Obama and McCain have brown eyes. In Canada, Harper, Layton and Duceppe have blue eyes to Dion's brown eyes. In Canada, as in the US, politicians with blue eyes dominate. I'll stand corrected but all of the US Presidents and Canadian PMs since the era of colour TV have blue eyes. (Both Rene Levesque and Pierre Trudeau had distinctive blue eyes.) That may have been true even before colour TV.

This is why I stated in another thread that if people are voting for an image, then be ready for a total lack of substance.

On the contrary, people look for attractive spouses because they will then have more attractive and successful children.

I once had a friend who was a bicycle courier and he explained that a perk of the job was meeting all the attractive receptionists working at downtown law firms, banks and offices. Such firms pay a premium to hire such receptionists. When I asked another friend how he hired a secretary, he answered simply: "I hire the cutest." His reasoning was that a cute girl put men at ease so that when they came in to his office, they were in a good mood.

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McCain, an exception to my argument, has a face for radio and this may have motivated his choice of Palin. Then again, McCain can still appeal to the pre-TV people or to those who want the wizened, serious, honest Sean Connery image.

BTW, Biden has had numerous hair transplants.

“When he had darker hair it was pretty obvious, he had larger plugs,” said Dr. Michael Beehner, medical director of the Saratoga Hair Transplant Center in New York. “With the lightening of his hair, it looks much, much better now.”

“Years ago, it was much more detectable,” added a surgeon from the Midwet who refused to be identified. The pattern of Biden’s hairline, according to him, did not follow the normal path of baldness.

Link

This past summer, there was a convention of hair transplant surgeons in Montreal and a journalist captured a hilarious series of interviews from surgeons discussing who "did" Biden and who "fixed" the job later. It turns out that a surgeon in Toronto has the repuitation for being the best "cleaner". I wonder how many times Biden flew into Toronto.

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GostHacked, you seem upset that image plays a role in the selection of a candidate. Why? In many cases, image dominates the selection. An uglly person will never be hired to read the news on TV. Someone with an ugly voice will never be hired (other than the CBC) to read the news.

To be even more controversial than I have already been in this thread, I think women voters explain part of this. In discussions with some women, I am disturbed by how many decide that they simply don't like a particular politician. The choice seems based on nothing other than instinct - or image. Men appear to approach the question differently; they usually disdain women politicians in general. If they're cute, they're not leaders. If they're ugly, they're not interesting.

Palin is a curious exception. Maybe it's because guys perceive her as cute but low maintenance. Dunno.

Edited September 20, 2008 by August1991