Reason not to run for public office, #1596

Surprisingly, the big story of the last weekend was the stunning official announcement that Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned by dioxin, causing a mysterious illness that left his face riddled with pimples.

Couple of thoughts came about here:

• The Oliver Stone film JFK, where the Joe Pesci character was excitedly brainstorming ways to depose Castro - "Put something in his food to make his beard fall out! He'd look fucking ridiculous without his beard!" - before breaking down into Pescian guffaws.
• The power of image - where seemingly banal issues of physical appearance enter the political stage. For example, no American president has had facial hair since Taft. Then again, no American president has approached 400 lbs since Taft, either.
• That one Senate candidate who turned himself blue. If only he could claim dioxin poisoning now.

In any case, the very idea that for every candidate running for office, there's either a hairless Joe Pesci running around hatching outlandish ugly-izing schemes against you, or a stylist telling you that your moustache makes you look Saddamesque, or the possibility that you may turn into the local crank and start drinking colloidal silver tonics in your garage, leaves me glad that I never really paid much attention to Poly Sci classes.

Unfortunately for Yushchenko, looks are important for his constituency. I mean, come on, the Ukraine is a good lookin' country. Half of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models come from there. In fact, half of the Sports Illustrated swimsuits themselves were probably manufactured there.

Dioxin poisoning or not, you can't go from looking like an Eastern European version of Sean Penn to looking like a beardless Gandalf and expect miracles to happen. Take it from my hood, the world's fifth largest economy, which picked a professional bodybuilder over the short moustached guy (alas, not Mario) to be its governor.