Voters may be looking for heroes when they select a president, and heroes need to look the part. The last elected U.S. President who was bald was Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, but then Eisenhower was already a war hero and he was a half inch taller than his also-bald opponent, Adlai Stevenson. According to Virginia Postrell writing in the New York Times, height is important, too. Since 1900, the taller candidate has won 19 of the 28 elections.
Short, Fat, Bald Presidents
At 5’4,” James Madison was the shortest man ever elected to the presidency, but in the days before television and image consultants, candidates may have found it easier to get away with being ugly, short, bald or in the case of William Howard Taft, really fat. (Taft is remembered for getting stuck in a white house bathtub and having to be rescued.) Abraham Lincoln was one of the tallest presidents at 6’4,” but arguably one of the ugliest as well. According to We, the People, when Lincoln was asked about an opponent’s accusation that he was two-faced, he answered, “If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?"
Campaign as Hero Quest
The largely unconscious psychological need to put a hero in office may be part of the recurring hero myth, which, according to the Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, is a human universal. The whole process of nomination and the grueling campaign that follows is like the archetypical hero’s quest. After overcoming many dangerous obstacles, the hero returns as a rescuer to the everyday world and uses his newfound wisdom as a boon to mankind. Undoubtedly voters think in these metaphorical ways and politicians are careful to maintain a certain “narrative.” Perhaps the expectations engendered by the hero story are too high for any President to actually fulfill, and must always lead to disappointment. Yet there will be another hero quest in four short years.
Candidate Appearance Matters
According to the book Inside the Presidential Debates, Nixon lost the debate with John F. Kennedy because he refused to wear makeup on camera. His five o’clock shadow and sweaty face contrasted with Kennedy’s tan and boyish grin, making Nixon look like a loser. While voters insist they are interested in the issues, body language counts for more than words in any communication, and politicians now hire image consultants who hover around them like bees around blooms.
The tendency to judge by appearances is nothing new. In the Bible story of the choosing of the first king of Israel, the man selected was Saul, “a most handsome young man. There was none finer—he literally stood head and shoulders above the crowd!” Saul really looked like a hero, all right, but as it turned out, he was a rather disappointing king. (1 Samuel 9)
Virginia Postrel, Going to Great Lengths , New York Times, August 31, 2003
Steve Rushin, The Bald Truth, Time Magazine, October 25, 2007
Newton N. Minnow and Craig L. LaMay, Inside the Presidential Debates, 2008, University of Chicago Press
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, New World Library, 2008
