Published: Sunday, January 25, 2004
The conventional
wisdom goes like this: Short people have little chance of winning the
nation's highest office. Nor do men with beards or people who wear glasses.
By
Arthur Hirsch
The Baltimore Sun
The short boy who would become the short man can dream of
becoming president of the United States.
Good presidential campaign tradition,
however, demands the slap in the face about how the contenders stack up
vertically. With some variations, the analysis goes something like this: If
you're short, you lose.
Some newspaper stories go beyond presidential
elections, quoting studies showing how tall men also fare better in pursuing
impressive jobs, promotions, women, woolly mammoths, pelts, fuel for the
fire and great parking spaces.
"Something called the Presidential Height
Index indicates that since the advent of television, the taller candidate
has gotten more votes in every election except one," the Capitol Hill
weekly, The Hill, reported. The exception was the post-Watergate election of
Jimmy Carter in 1976, an anomaly in more ways than one. Not only did a
5-foot-9 Carter defeat a 6-foot-2 Gerald R. Ford, but a Democrat won the
South.
At least the nation did not do something
really alarming like, say, elect a guy with a mustache. Or - perish the
thought - a beard. Or even eyeglasses. Or a guy who would belly up to the
lectern for a news conference, opening his suit jacket to reveal a gut like
Santa Claus.
Whatever else is going on in the zeitgeist,
whatever the racial mix on television, however enlightened we seem to be
about the handicapped or the overweight, the roster of leading presidential
candidates continues to look like a casting call for the adult male lead in
"Leave it to Beaver." Short guys aren't the only ones dealt out.
At least when the story of Ward, June, Wally
and Beaver Cleaver went on the air in 1957, the president was a bald guy.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the last bald
guy to be elected president, and the way things are going we'll never see
that again. Of course, he twice defeated another bald guy, Democrat Adlai E.
Stevenson.
This was before television and John F.
Kennedy changed the rules. Kennedy had about the same relationship with the
camera as Juliette Binoche does, only he had better hair.
Television brings particular things about a
politician into focus. Things that might not necessarily bear on the
candidate's ability to lead the Free World. His nose, for one thing. The
jowls, for another, or jaw or ears or the relation of all these parts.
Even the most issue-oriented voter can watch
Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry discussing trade policy and find it
impossible not to think of Herman Munster. Dennis Kucinich? Looks like a
very decent guy, but you mostly see him managing a Home Depot.
Besides, Kucinich is listed as 5-feet 7
inches. The last president we had who was that height was John Adams, who
was also bald.
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, a top
Democratic contender, has been dogged by questions about his physical
stature. The New Republic not long ago told how Dean was chatting with
reporters on his campaign jet and taking exception to a story in The New
York Times that described him as "diminutive."
Dean evidently found this annoying, not least
because, he said, the Times reporter who wrote the story is "about 5-3."
When asked how tall he is, Dean told a group of reporters he's 5-8, "almost
5-9." Then he said "5-8 and three-quarters," explaining that he doesn't
usually get into the whole business about that "three-quarters" because "it
sounds like I'm very sensitive about my height. And I'm not."
Of course. The famous Dean anger probably has
nothing to do with any of this. Nothing at all.
Dean fits the 1950s TV look at least as well
as anyone in the race, although he might not be quite as telegenic as either
Gen. Wesley Clark or U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who could
easily do Dockers ads. Dean looks like the sort of nondescript guy who shows
up in a short-sleeved dress shirt and polyester necktie to fix the photocopy
machine. Maybe he'd slap the darn thing around a little.
Dean is trim, of course, as are all the
leading candidates, as is or was just about anyone who has campaigned for or
held the office in 90 years. The last fat guy to occupy the White House was
William Howard Taft, a 6-footer who left office in 1913 reportedly weighing
about 335 pounds. Taft, incidentally, was also the last president with a
mustache.
These days, any time a politician or former
office holder either shaves or starts losing weight, it's taken as a signal
of big doings to come.
For example, GOP Maryland State Sen. E.J.
Pipkin shaved his mustache to enter the 2004 U.S. Senate race against
Barbara Mikulski.
"A lot of people believe you are hiding
things (behind facial hair)," says Jill Bremer, a corporate image trainer in
Oak Park, Ill.
A rather recent notion, evidently, as
there was a time when a beard or a mustache seemed a requirement for the
presidency. Of the 12 presidents who served between 1861 and 1913, only two
were clean-shaven.
Speaking of hiding things, Bremer says she
"wouldn't vote for someone who had a comb-over."
In this case, Bremer says the trouble
would not be a person's appearing untrustworthy, but seeming hopelessly
passe. In the corporate world and in politics, she says, "You need to send
every message you can that you're not out of date."
Both Bremer and image consultant Joli Andre
of San Diego say obesity probably would disqualify a presidential contender
because voters would worry too much about that candidate's physical fitness
for the office.
"You want people mindful of their health,"
says Andre. "You want people on their game."
Oddly, a fat president is not considered
leadership material for a fat country. What would we do without the
all-important TV shots of the president jogging?
True, that image requirement would have left
out Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led the country through the Great Depression
and World War II while getting around in a wheelchair. Press photographers
famously agreed not to portray Roosevelt in the wheelchair.
Since then, the country, if not the office of
the presidency, has become more wheelchair accessible. Who knows how a
contemporary FDR would play on prime time.
Roosevelt, by the way, stood 6-feet-2. That's
two inches shorter than the tallest president, Abraham Lincoln, who at
6-feet-4 towered over his peers at a time when the average man stood around
5-feet-6. The shortest president, James Madison - co-author of the
Federalist Papers and drafter of the Bill of Rights - stood 5-feet-4.
He'd have no chance against George W. Bush,
of course, who stands 5-11. The November 2000 election preserved the
integrity of the Presidential Height Index, as Bush lost the popular vote to
Al Gore, who stands 6-1. This formula has Bush beating all the Democrats but
Kerry (6-4), U.S. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (6-1) and Edwards (6).
Who would deny that Bush, like his father,
makes a fine, tall figure of a president in the dark suit, white shirt and
light blue tie? He sure looks the part, whether that involves leading troops
into war or heading upstairs to see what might be troubling the Beaver.
Short guys and others need not apply.
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