Looking Foxy, Dems!

At least according to the WaPo, which front-pages an article on the “parade of attractive candidates” that could help the Dems win in November. (I shit you not.) Three pages later, it concludes that a candidate’s looks only matter to people who know fuck-all about the issues. So, awesome story.

Anyhoo, here are the Doable Dems by the WaPo’s reckoning:


Hot or Not?
Call me crazy, but I think the most notable feature about this group is not that they’re unusually attractive for political candidates (come on—John Edwards, Barack Obama, Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer?—attractive politicos are hardly unheard of), but that they’re all just fairly young. I mean, what's the average age of the two houses of Congress these days—1,000? It's probably not as bad as all that, but I must admit there are times I'm watching C-SPAN and can't help but notice that my 51-year-old senator, Evan Bayh, looks like a daggone whippersnapper.


Anyway, my point is, not that I really have one, is that it's probably more notable to see young, fresh-faced candidates than attractive ones. That these candidates have been singled out as good-looking may be more a function of our general attitudes toward aging, particularly as it relates to beauty, than an actual dearth of attractive Congresscritters.

Then again, maybe there’s something to be said for youth.


Dennis Hastert
1960 Yearbook Photo