I'm No Pundit

Is Kerry's hair a political tool?

The first thing I did when I got up this morning was to check the news to see what the consensus was about last night's debate. There were a couple times early on in the debate where I thought Kerry smoked Bush--particularly the line, "It's the military's job to win the war, but it's the President's job to win the peace" and "The president gave the top 1 percent of income-earners in America...$89 billion last year, more than the 80 percent of people who earn $100,000 or less all put together." All of that happened in the first half-hour. I gave Bush a couple of points later in the debate, and Kerry lost a couple points toward the end when he double-talked a couple answers. Still, I thought Bush fell on his face during the "name three mistaken decisions" and he made a laughing stock of himself by saying he would definitely not appoint a Supreme Court Justice that supported slavery (the 1857 Dred Scott decision). Overall, I thought Kerry beat Bush by about 60-40. This morning's news is calling it even. Go figure.

Still, it was the best presidential debate I've ever seen. It was filled with surprise moments. We Tivo'd it and were able to go back over each of Bush's creepy winks and that one moment where Kerry wiped something from the corner of his mouth and then rubbed it on his pant leg. There were a couple of long shots during the debate of Kerry writing during Bush's rambles, where Kerry's head was turned down and tilted--as if he was aiming his scalp at the camera. Wendy and I were captivated by his hair. It's become more silver during the campaign, and it's now ringed by dark brown. We speculated that this was on purpose; the silver hair makes voters think he's wise, but that brown border reminds them that, yes, he was a young man who went to Viet Nam. Also, the hair makes people imagine him as the JFK who wasn't assasinated but lived to become our elder statesman. It even worked on Bush--he referred to him near the end of the debate as "Senator Kennedy."