Emily Yoffe: The Importance of Being Handsome in Politics

Emily Yoffe, in the Los Angeles Times (July 13 2004):

You can't say the fixation with John Edwards' looks is just a media phenomenon ("His dazzling smile" — Wall Street Journal;"His hair is a beautiful shade of chocolate brown with honey-colored highlights" — Washington Post;"Each tooth is an ivory treasure, perfectly polished and aligned" — Slate). Not when Republicans refer to him as"the Breck girl" or when John Kerry, who selected the North Carolina senator as his running mate, gazes upon him in a manner that would make even a Breck girl blush.

Kerry has repeatedly made the joke that, in their match-up against George Bush and Dick Cheney, he and Edwards have"better hair." Kerry even acknowledged Edwards' selection as People magazine's sexiest politician. What's next, candidates for office showing up at MTV's plastic surgery show,"I Want a Famous Face," holding pictures of John Edwards?

But politicians' looks have always mattered — they become a shorthand way of capturing someone's character. Even the least vain of people instinctively know this. With the election of 1860 weeks away, Abraham Lincoln received a letter from an 11-year-old girl, Grace Bedell, that read in part,"If you let your whiskers grow … you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husband's [sic] to vote for you and then you would be president."

Lincoln replied,"As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affect[ta]ion if I were to begin it now?"

He grew the beard.

In 1920, Warren Harding, an undistinguished Ohio senator, won the Republican Party nomination, and the presidency, in large part because, as the U.S. Senate's website says, the"tall and handsome" Harding"fit the popular image of what a president should look like." His presidency was brief and scandal-plagued. As for those good looks, portraits of the 29th president show a jowly, white-haired man.

Edwards' looks coincide with a cultural moment in which, as the New York Times recently pointed out, the new leading man is"soft of cheek." You can imagine, if he loses the race, Edwards taking over for Tobey Maguire in"Spider-Man 3." Despite Edwards' youthfulness, at 51 he is not actually young. But how many candidates for vice president could say convincingly,"If I'm elected, I promise to reach puberty before my swearing in?"

Of course, Edwards' glow only underscores Kerry's dullness. Kerry's face — once considered dashingly attractive — has been a constant source of unflattering comment, from his resemblance to the television character Lurch to the"Why the Long Face?" jokes, to the speculation that Botox is behind his lack of animation. The insults seem not simply gratuitous because they get at a dreariness of personality....