Shiny Happy Democrats
So, does Eliot Spitzer think no one knows what he looks like? The New York attorney general/corporate dragon slayer/self-promotion machine is running a series of ads (he's running for governor) that have been roundly mocked for protraying him with the top of his head cut off. Said top is, of course, very bald. Is one of the most famous politicians in America just unusually vain?
Actually, no. Jonathan Tasini, who's running as an anti-war primary candidate against Hillary Clinton, is running an ad that mimicks the Spitzer Crop to a T. Tasini is less absurdly famous than Spitzer, but if he manages to upset Hillary, he must know a photographer is eventually going to snap him eyebrows-up.
Does anyone with a knack for male psychology know what's at work here?
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I’m having trouble finding the study, but I believe it has less to do with the candidates vanity, and more to do with the belief that voters are less likely to elect a bald candidate. I remember reading a study a few years ago that based all of its questions about who you would vote for based on various physical characteristics (they showed them pictures) of the candidate.
Then again, that’s just a guess. Maybe they both got the same director and he thinks it’s a cool technique.
Does anyone with a knack for male psychology know what’s at work here?
Ooh! I know! I know! He’s doing it for the children, who are very precious and innocent and should not be exposed to what looks like a photograph of a giant circumsized penis!
In contemporary politics you have to have a lush head of hair and, just as important, no facial hair. See Reagan, Clinton, Kim Jong-il, etc.
This ad has several shots of Spitzer’s partial hair. The crop has the effect of maximizing the size of his face.
No big deal.
Spitzer ought to embrace the baldness. He could hold an impromptu head-shaving at one of his many press availabilities. Then he could position himself as the Frank Purdue of NY State politics. “It takes a tough man to be a tender-headed, statist, process-abusing prosecutor.”
When does the Empire State celebrate St. Baldrick’s Day?
Kevin
(thinning, but not bald, yet.)
That’s a strange criticism given the several shots of Spitzer in the commercial that clearly show his whole head. I think that sort of ultra-close-up shot is just trendy right now. For people with hair, too.
Yup.
Both guys are trying to hide their bad tie days
God made a few perfect heads, and put hair on all the rest.
I was disappointed by the St. Baldrick’s Day link. I was hoping it had something to do with Blackadder.