Coughing up a hair ball
John Edwards has committed a populist sin — he spent money on haircuts, some say frivolously. Never mind that we expect him to look like a debutant or that the shaggy look is out; never mind that with the gazillion things he’s juggling, a “walk in” appointment at Super Cuts probably wouldn’t work for him. I like that Norman Lear defends the circumstances, defuses the spin, second piece. It raises the question … seriously … has anyone asked what Hil’s hairdresser charges on a monthly basis? John’s error was in putting it through the campaign account, which he reimbursed. Meanwhile, neither McCain nor Guilianni have enough hair for anybody to take a swipe at … guess we’ll just have to keep discussing the various X’s, and the Mc Flack Jacket walk through the Baghdad market.
I swear to you — if Edwards has lost someone’s confidence because he spends money on “appearance,” then they haven’t got a passport to the real world anyhow.
Interesting piece on the Rovian wisdom’s that produce this kind of thing, below. DO look at the last article by David Sirota — and the hardball that mild-mannered and well-coiffed John has thrown the other candidates, right across K Street. Excellent!
Seems to me I remember other political dust-up’s over haircuts in past years — not the first time we’ve been to this rodeo. The clowns are the same, though.
Jude
In the Beverly Hills Style: Candidate’s $400 Coiffure
ADAM NAGOURNEY, New York Times
April 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 19 — Presidential campaigns spend all sorts of money on all sorts of things. Television advertisements. Polls. Big-time consultants. Coaches for the news media. Chartered airplanes. High-priced Beverly Hills haircuts for the candidate.
John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat, announced on Thursday that he was reimbursing his campaign $800 to cover what his aides said was the cost of two haircuts — yes, you read that correctly — by a Beverly Hills barber, though, perhaps, the word stylist is more applicable.
A spokesman for the campaign, Eric Schultz, said that Torrenueva Hair Designs of Beverly Hills sent the bill for a haircut in February and a second last month to the Edwards campaign and that the campaign mistakenly paid it. Mr. Schultz said Mr. Edwards would reimburse the campaign. He would not say how a haircut could cost $400 or whether it might cover other expenses, too. The stylist, Joseph Torrenueva, said in an interview that his normal charge was $175 “in my shop” and that the extra fee was to go to where the candidate was, a practice he described as routine among his clients. Beyond that, he said, “I really can’t talk about it.”
Mr. Edwards has presented himself in the Democratic field as an advocate of working-class Americans, lamenting the nation’s growing economic disparity.
Mr. Edwards was disparaged as “the Breck Girl” by Republicans when he ran for president in 2004. More recently, he was captured on camera, waiting for an interview to begin and presumably unaware that he was being taped, fussing with his hair for nearly two minutes.
That clip found its way to You Tube, with the song “I Feel Pretty” playing in the background. Posted on Nov. 8, 2006, it was viewed 289,288 times as of Thursday evening.
When Bill Clinton was president, he once summoned a Los Angeles hair stylist to Air Force One to cut his hair while the plane sat on the tarmac in Los Angeles.
Candidates are finding more gaffes and foibles posted on the Internet. Senator John McCain, a Republican hopeful, was captured on camera in South Carolina on Wednesday when he was asked about sending “an air-mail message to Teheran.”
“Remember that old Beach Boys song ‘Bomb Iran?’ ” Mr. McCain asked and burst out with the first three notes of “Barbara Ann,” with slightly different words. “Bomb, bomb, bomb,” he sang. ++
Bullshit Trouble in River City
Norman Lear, HuffPo
04.22.2007
The media and press today suffer fools and the foolish. Word of John Edwards’ $400 haircut might constitute a shock anywhere in the $2.25 per haircut American outback, some of which happily still exists. But college educated, well-traveled journalists — at least to any city in their state what’s got themselves an office buildin’ 20 stories high, oughtta know that there likely isn’t a barber in America charging a man –a man, I say– $400 for a haircut.
A good barber, in an expensive location, well-known in his field, $150 sure. $200 perhaps. But $400? There had to be an extenuating circumstance.
I called the barber in question, Joe Tourrenoueva, who has been my barber for 40 years, since way back when he charged $20. He’s put in the years, his prices have gone up with his reputation, and still, percentage-wise, they haven’t gone up as far as the hot dog.
Little Joe, as he’s affectionately known, charges $175 for a haircut now. In his shop. When your crazy schedule dictates that he must come to you to cut your hair, his charge is based (he, too, friends, supports a family, helps his extended family and runs a business) on his time out of the shop when he could be attending other heads. Thus, $400 for that particular Edwards’ job.
The NY Times had it right, late in the story. The barber charged $400 because of the time he was out of pocket for other clients, not because John Edwards shops for $400 haircuts, or that is what Little Joe charges. BUT the NY Times’ lead was just as disingenuous as the rest. For shame.
And if John Edwards, as reported, apologized and said he’d never see his barber again, for double shame! ++
A Lesson in Rovian Smear Tactics in the Media
by pioneer111
Sat, 04/21/2007
A commenter in another diary wrote about the Edward’s $400 haircut story and said:
-
…but this is the kind of thing that should not have happened from an anti-poverty candidate
There is truth in this sentiment, but it is not the main issue. Any presidential candidate is not poor, so will be subject to something being found if someone is looking to find something. And obviously the reporters were looking for something. Why were they looking for such detail in expenses in John Edwards’ campaign? They didn’t do that to the other campaigns.
I would like you to consider this possibility. The Republicans learned new refined campaign tactics from Karl Rove. They used tactics that were totally unexpected by Democrats and, sometimes, we still don’t know how to deal with them. This happened all the time to the Democratic candidates in at least the last two election cycles and we still have not developed a good defense. Whining about it doesn’t help. You have to understand the strategy.
Rove taught the Republicans and the media to attack a candidate for his/her strengths not weaknesses. This sounds counter-intuitive but it is very effective.
Look what happened to some of our past candidates and what is happening with some of the current candidates.
You think Kerry is a war hero? We will show you he is not, he is a fake hero and didn’t deserve his medals.
You think Gore has integrity and is smart? We will show you he is stiff and out of touch with the common guy; further he makes up stupid lies like he invented the internet.
You think Gore is a hero and environmental champion. We will show you he is a hypocrite who uses way more energy than the average person.
You think Dean is a grassroots candidate? We’ll show you he is unhinged - the scream.
You think Edwards is a populist? We will show you he is wealthy and an elitist - hence the big house and haircut stories.
You think Obama is the classic American story of integration of black and white. We will show you he is foreign and scary - the madrassa story, or he is not black enough nor white enough.
You think Obama has wonderful oratory skills. We will show you he is like those televangelists that take poor people’s money. (see the Youtube — open link)
You think Hillary is a strong woman leader? We will show you she is unfeeling, castrating, and shrill and her only qualification is being married to Bill Clinton.
But with the Republicans do the opposite. Use their weaknesses and build them up.
Bush was born with a silver spoon. We will show you he is like the average guy you want to have a beer with.
Reagan was an actor without much depth in policy. Reagan is the great communicator.
This is a deliberate strategy by the Republican smear machine in the MSM. Some attacks are outright lies and others are true with a spin. They will be subtle and disingenuous. They will not attack the candidates on substance but on image. Substance requires real analysis. This is a soundbyte world.
Edwards is a fighter who champions the little guy and won against big corporations. Therefore make him effeminate and weak like a Breck Girl, a “faggot”, a lightweight and an ambulance chaser.
Edwards is the anti-poverty champion, but he needs everybody including the wealthy and the middle class to hear him. They don’t listen readily to guys that look like Cesar Chavez or Dennis Kucinich(even if they are concerned about the poor), at least not as a serious presidential candidate. The haircut is important on television, and when you pay the stylist to come to you because you are travelling for 28 days it costs alot. However you really can’t fight back easily. The ordinary guy who pays $10 per cut doesn’t understand and judges quickly. That is why the charge is so effective.
Remember they want to make Edwards look like a hypocrite. They hate his agenda, are fearful of losing power, and are looking for ways to weaken the Democratic brand. Who do they need to not believe John Edwards? The working guy. So make John look like a snob who couldn’t possibly care. Talk about his house and haircuts. The campaign listed expenses honestly but someone was digging for the gotcha.
They will dig up some more examples that we won’t see coming. There is nothing we can do about it but try to be alert. Elizabeth gave good advice to the Edwards campaign to stay in regular hotels and not be extravagant because it is a populist campaign and it should be respectful of people’s hard-earned donations. But something else will come up. Just watch for it.
Each candidate will have a unique and different kind of attack because they have different strengths. You may want to examine the messages already out there gaining traction that disparage your candidate. If you weaken the candidate’s strength then you make him/her less viable.
This is propaganda. It works to shake trust in our own candidates. And we keep not noticing the strategy and buy into their frames. The only response to people who then repeat these concerned questions is that “of course they are looking for trivial things so you don’t get your health care, etc.”
There are honest questions we need to ask ourselves about each candidate. There are substantive criticisms that should be made. However, we need to examine the real data available and how each candidate does on the campaign trail. We have to sort out the propaganda from the genuine concerns. It will not be easy and may, in fact, be impossible. I invite you to consider whether the stories relate to the candidates’ positions or desirable characteristics of a president, or are they distractions meant to keep us from looking at what is important.
For the Edwards’ critics I ask, so who do you trust? John Edwards or the Media who is shilling for their corporate masters? What are good comebacks to the haircut story? One I saw was “It’s about time the media quit focusing on Hair Care and start focusing on Health Care.”
Maybe you have other responses to share either for Edwards, Obama, Hillary or any of the candidates.
Something to think about and notice. What classic rovian attacks are you aware of? Which spin are you buying into? ++
Man Up
by digby, Hullabaloo
I see that there is a little argument going on in the comments of this post over at Election Central as to whether John Edwards was asking for the Republicans and the Queenbee to go after him when he spent $400 on a haircut. Some people believe that he is a hypocrite because his campaign is based on the “two Americas” theme and his spending so much money makes him look bad.
I don’t know if that’s the case, but I do know that’s not what the Republicans and the Queen Bee are getting at. It’s not about how much the haircut cost — it’s about the fact that he gets his hair cut by a fancy “hairdresser” instead of a butch barber like a real man would. They are basically calling him a “faggot” just like Coulter just as Coulter did.
They are feminizing him, the same way they feminized Gore with his earth tones and Kerry with his “flip-flopping” you-know-what.They tried to do it with Clinton but couldn’t really get at him very well because he was a womanizer — so they said his wife was a dyke instead.
The Republicans start these memes and pass them around to their little insider pals because they know it amuses the sophomoric punditocrisy during homeroom. But it is also a way for them to get the media to subtly identify with the manly virtues they covet or admire, thus furthering the GOP goal of alienating the legions of insecure white males (and the women who love them) in this country from the Democratic party. They’ve been doing it for years, ever since the 60’s when Ronnie was talking about how you couldn’t tell the girls from the boys anymore.
Don’t confuse this with money. These people are all millionaires. This is about social hierarchy and high school archetypes being used to sell Republicans — and the dupes or agents in the press who help them. If they haven’t signed on to GOP politics directly, the Queen and all her followers in the media at least signed on to the idea that if they treat the Dems like a bunch of feminized losers, tripping them in the halls, knocking over their lunch trays and putting “kick me” signs on their backs, the awesome BMOC’s will finally invite them to the party. Why do you think they kissed that macho jerk Don Imus’s butt all those years? ++
Edwards’ Big Announcement Drives Populist Wedge Between Dem Opponents & K Street
David Sirota, WorkingAssets
Saturday, April 21, 2007
I just received this Edwards press release:
-
On Saturday, April 21st, 2007, Senator John Edwards will deliver the keynote address at the Michigan Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner and will announce his opposition to the South Korea trade deal. The Bush administration is finalizing details of the agreement and is expected to submit it to Congress for approval later this spring…[Edwards said trade deals] “must include strong labor and environmental standards and lift up workers in both countries…Congress should make it clear to the President that it will override any agreement that does not protect American jobs and American interests.”
Big question: Will the other Democratic candidates join Edwards’ call, or will they stay silent in deference to K Street and Wall Street?
I ask this question honestly, and it is one Edwards is certainly going to start pressing. He knows that, for instance, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are surrounding themselves with and relying on Bob Rubin’s Wall Street machine - a machine that exchanges massive amounts of campaign cash for candidates’ complicity in a trade policy that includes stringent protections for corporate profits, but no protections for human rights, labor rights or the environment (the Korea deal is particularly disgusting, considering it extends a new free trade zone to the Kaesong industrial complex in North Korea - thus forcing American workers to compete with workers who are literally enslaved by their own government). Edwards knows, in other words, that the trade issue is going to be a major point of contrast for him in the Democratic primary - not unlike it was for Dick Gephardt when he pulled off his Iowa primary upset in 1988.
And so the question is whether when faced with Edwards courageous populist stand, the other candidates in the race will bow down to their Wall Street masters, or move towards a middle-class agenda? Edwards is, in short, driving a wedge between K Street/Wall Street-backed candidates and K Street and Wall Street itself. It is not only a gutsy move, but a politically brilliant one - and it will be interesting to see what happens. ++
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Add comment April 23rd, 2007