The Make-Up Scandals

by digby

For as long as I can remember, one of the truisms of modern politics was that Richard Nixon lost the 1960 presidential debate to John F. Kennedy because he refused to wear make-up and was all pasty and sweaty looking on the TV. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the old trope “If you heard the debate on radio, Nixon definitely won!” For more than forty years it has been an article of faith that politicians had better pay attention to how they look on television or risk being Richard Nixon.

Suddenly, in 2007, intrepid summer interns are feverishly combing through FEC reports ferreting out every last penny politicians spend on hair and make-up so journalists can breathlessly report it as if it says something unusual about the candidate. The implication is that the vain candidates are spending the donations they receive from nice little old ladies on frivolous, unnecessary personal services. Reporters seem to take particular joy in interviewing the hair and make-up artists to get a little quote that makes the male candidate look like some sort of prima donna, if not outright feminine. Just using the word “foundation and powder” in the context of a presidential candidate is apparently enough to make the newsroom giggle like school girls.

Despite all this new chatter about hair cuts and make-up, it’s interesting that we haven’t heard a thing about the one candidate in the field who actually makes a living day in and day out wearing make-up during the entire workday (and no, I’m not talking about Hillary Clinton.) Like his namesake, the “southern fried Reagan” Fred Thompson has had hair and make-up professionals touching up his rugged visage day in and day out for years. He probably also gets manicures and facials and might even get various parts of his body waxed. (In Hollywood Fred’s world, make-up is the least of it.)

Since the press has decided that politicians who care about how they look on television are suspect, I assume we will be getting a full expose of the television star Thompson’s beauty regime. It is, after all, now considered a measure of the man’s character and sheds an important light on what kind of a leader he will make. The public has a need to know. And nobody needs to wait for his FEC reports. All they have to do is call up the production staffers at “Law and Order.” (If they’re too busy, maybe they can outsource it to the political professionals at “Inside Hollywood” or Page Six.)

*This is cross posted at Salon where I’ll be helping to fill in for Tim Grieve in the War Room while he’s making the move to DC.

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