I got a copy of Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House by Ben Shapiro (an IMAO fan). It’s about presidential image-making and all the lengths presidential candidates go to to sell themselves to the public — all the way back to George Washington. Shapiro also has a formula for ranking all the president’s on image including his scoring of the current presidential candidates. I haven’t gotten to much of a chance to look it over yet, but it looks like a fun read. I just hope there’s a whole chapter devoted to explaining why there was a period in American history where you had to have mutton chops to get elected and whether that will ever return (we can only hope!).
I might even vote for Ron Paul if he were to show up in mutton chops at the next debate!
The Mutton chop should be Romney’s new style. what with Crull beside him and the new tough biker leather, It’s a natural.
I wish the world was more like the movie “Gettysburg”, when everyone had some kind of beard and you could tell how cool someone was by the size of their beard.
Hey, there was a whole period of history (most of the Victorian era) when mutton chops were required not only for high political office but also for getting ahead in business, for literary success, and for makin’ it with the ladies. It was as if the “Caesar” haircut, instead of being popular for about 5 years, stayed popular for about 65 years, and if you wanted to amount to anything you cut your hair short and brushed it forward like George Clooney for the rest of your life. Fun-o.
I wish the world was more like the movie “Gettysburg”, when everyone had some kind of beard and you could tell how cool someone was by the size of their beard.
They look cool but let me tell you, I’ve volunteered in nursing homes and most people don’t realize that most beards smell. There is a reason they used to be called “soup-catchers”. But then, for the most part, we’re better off not knowing how the past smelled; a scratch-n-sniff history book or movies in Smell-O-Vision would make us moderns keel over at what our forefathers put up with every day – and what a lot of people still do on some parts of the planet.
However, in the 1850’s and ’60’s, true, it seems the longer your obscure Old Testament first name AND your facial hair AND your record in the Mexican-American War, the cooler you were! Duuuude!
I’m waiting for those muttonchops to come back in style. Then I’ll be the cool one.