Sarah Palin's Hair

UDAPTE, September 7, 2008: Scroll down for a different take on Sarah's look.
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This is such an idiotic story.

Time to pick apart Sarah Palin's appearance.

From the Boston Herald:

Yes, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has a lot on her plate: a pregnant teen daughter, a son on his way to Iraq, an infant with Down syndrome and a looming national election.

But must her hair suffer? With her long, straight, often pinned-up locks, Palin looks one humid day away from fronting a Kiss cover band.

“It’s about 20 years out of date,” said Boston stylist Mario Russo of the Alaska governor’s ’do. “Which goes to show how off she might be on current events.”

For readers who are rolling their eyes about this nonissue - get real. People talk about hair - from Mitt Romney’s perfectly sprayed coif, John Edward’s Breck do, McCain’s unfortunate combover and Barak’s No. 3 buzz cut.

...[S]ome argue Palin might be a little too long in the tooth for such tresses, sparking another squabble: to cut or not to cut after hitting 40. Yes, long hair evokes youth, but long hair after 40 can flirt with desperation.

OK.

Let's be fair and balanced. If the topic is vice presidential candidates' hair, let's talk about Joe Biden and his "helmet."

It is a fraying, combed-back helmet that barely covers a longtime fact of Washington life: The senator from Delaware has taken steps to pre-empt baldness.

The most common hypothesis is that he received a hair transplant, where follicles from the bushier back of the head are grafted onto fading spots closer to the front of the dome.

In 1987, a Washington Post reporter asked him to confirm the theory. "Guess," he responded. "I've got to keep some mystery in my life."

A quick Politico survey of stylists and hair transplant surgeons — some of whom have followed Biden’s career path for years, while others didn’t know about him until yesterday — found that there was little mystery.

“When he had darker hair it was pretty obvious, he had larger plugs,” said Dr. Michael Beehner, medical director of the Saratoga Hair Transplant Center in New York. “With the lightening of his hair, it looks much, much better now.”

“Years ago, it was much more detectable,” added a surgeon from the Midwest who refused to be identified. The pattern of Biden’s hairline, according to him, did not follow the normal path of baldness.

A surgeon from the Midwest refused to be identified.

That's funny. He must fear retribution. That's understandable.

We know the Obama campaign is excessively tough on critics.

Don't mess with Biden's hair.

Until the late 1980s, according to Beehner, the only method of hair transplantation involved “plugs” that each contained 15 to 30 hairs. If executed well, they could be lined up to create a solid wall of hair. Today, it’s different — and much less visible. “They use little tiny grafts,” Beehner said. “And a typical session is 1,000 to 2,000 grafts.”

What do Biden's plugs say about him?

Regarding Sarah Palin: “It’s about 20 years out of date,” said Boston stylist Mario Russo of the Alaska governor’s ’do. “Which goes to show how off she might be on current events.”

So then is it fair to say that Biden's poor hair transplant procedure is telling in terms of his decision-making?

Might Biden's judgment be off?

Does he harbor personal insecurities, doubts about himself?

Is he apt to take risks rife with potentially disastrous consequences?

Look at his hair. I think we know.

Isn't it fun talking about vice presidential hair? Just a heartbeat away from the presidency, VP hair is very, VERY important.

Good grief.
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Here's an opposing opinon, complimenting Sarah's style, from the Los Angeles Times:

Style has never been more important than it is in this election. That's not just because this high-stakes political contest is being watched by a tabloid and celebrity-obsessed culture. It's also because this election now has so many powerful women on the national stage who are putting their message across with vastly different style strategies.

For months, we've seen how polarizing style can be, dissecting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's gender-neutral pantsuits, Cindy McCain's $300,000 Oscar de la Renta-and-diamonds convention outfit and Michelle Obama's throwback Jackie O. shift dresses. But in a little more than a week, the Republican vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, 44, has stolen the campaign's style spotlight, causing a run on Kawasaki 704 eyeglass frames and upswept hairstyles.

...Barely a blip on the political radar before now, Palin has to go the extra mile to hone her VP style. But far from uglifying herself, she plays up her sexuality. And this early on, Palin is already playing the image game like a pro. When Sen. John McCain accepted the nomination Thursday night, she wore a black satin jacket that dipped just low enough in front so you could see some cleavage. In this political marriage, Palin clearly knows she's the trophy.

Her hair is a study in contrasts, carefree and "done" at the same time. The untidiness of her updo has a can-do spirit that says, "I have more important things to do than worry about my hair, so I just twirled it into this clip so I could get to the real business of governing and shooting caribou and having babies and taking them to hockey practice."

The bouffant in the front, which appears to be teased from underneath, is more traditional, to appeal to the GOP base and those big donors from Houston who've been known to fly with their hairstylists on their private planes. And yet, you get the feeling that at the end of the day, she could shake out that lustrous mane (longer than any other major female U.S. political figure's) and get it on with her man.

She wears skirts that are quite form-fitting and often goes without stockings. As ZZ Top might say, she's got legs, and she knows how to use 'em. When Sen. John McCain introduced her at an Aug. 29 campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio, she was wearing open-toed red patent leather shoes. The only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick, she said in her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday. She could have added to that joke the black pencil skirt and shiny, oyster-colored jacket she wore that night, a more modern take on Clinton's power pantsuit. It looked darn good.

That's a little creepy, in my opinion.

I really don't think her supporters are wowed by her hair or her other physical attributes.

It's her, who she is, what she stands for that makes her so appealing -- not her appearance.