First Up: How To Launch a Bland Campaign

as you've probably heard by now, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) has announced that he's running for president. which is good, because his campaign launch gives me fresh fodder for critiquing fashion, image, and style in politics.

Joe Biden's candidacy is an interesting case from a stylistic perspective, because Joe Biden is not all that interesting as a candidate. he's one of those senators whom you hear about a lot ranting on this or that (along the lines of, say, Richard Lugar, his ranking member on Foreign Affairs, Chris Dodd, and others), but for whom a sharp mental picture doesn't appear right away in your head (unlike, say, Ted Kennedy and Joe Lieberman). the good news there is that the campaign has a lot of flexibility to work with in terms of the image, if most Americans don't already associate various things with Joe Biden when they hear his name. the bad news is the other side of that coin: Biden is bland.

let's start with Joe's website.



the first thing that strikes me is that there are WAY too many pictures of Joe Biden. and these aren't pictures of Joe Biden shaking hands, like on Obama's website. these are big pictures of Joe Biden staring at me like a deer caught in headlights, doing something with his mouth that might be called more a smirk than a smile. so already I'm thinking to myself a number of things:
1. this guy likes how he looks a little too much: vain and superficial
2. he's really wants to establish eye contact with me: desperate
3. why is he smirking? maybe he thinks his campaign is a joke, or that soldiers dying in Iraq is funny

Joe is wearing a dark navy blazer and a light blue shirt, with the top button undone. good choice on the unbuttoned shirt, although I can't say the same of the blazer. look at Barack. he has a crisp white shirt (with a tie on, unfortunately) with his sleeves rolled up and no jacket. the image Barack projects is much more working-candidate than patrician-candidate. Joe Biden doesn't need any more reminders that he's old and that he's probably running because this is the last open presidential field he'll see for a long time. the "I'm more comfortable with my jacket on, thank you" look screams inaction and inertia to me, rather than the energy and the momentum that I feel just looking at Barack's picture. at least he's not wearing a tie, unlike Duncan Hunter, Sam Brownback, and Bill Richardson. I don't even know who Duncan Hunter is pointing at on his home page, but it looks like the staff was aiming for "strong" but overshot and got "heavy-handed" and "scolding instead. Sam Brownback just looks like a douche. Bill Richardson is the only one who pulls off the suited look because of the way he's positioned: slightly contraposto to show the effort he's making to turn his attention to me (me!), thus alleviating the otherwise static and uncaring tone. Bill's suit, though, leaves something to be desired. you're big enough, buddy, without wearing a dark color that makes you look positively like a boulder; try a vertically striped shirt next time, and don't crop the picture so close that it squishes against your bulbous features.


the reason why women should get into politics (besides the fact that they obviously make up half of the country's population and should therefore be equally represented in the upper echelons of government) is because they bring so much more flexibility in fashion and image than men. if I didn't know any better, I'd say that Duncan Hunter and Sam Brownback were wearing the same suit. Hillary, on the other hand, gets to do all sorts of things with her wardrobe. in her current homepage, she's sporting an Al Gore-esque tan suit with a popped collar. the lighter shade contrasts well with the dark, bad, evil, deep tones of the men she's running against, although it's not quite as bold a statement as her crimson blazer for the "I'm In" announcement, which no man could ever pull off (or, if you're Sam Brownback, would ever dream of pulling off because it would look too ga-aa-ay). it's hard to see how the suit is cut, but what's nice about women's suits - especially military-looking ones with stiff upper collars - is that they can be sexually ambiguous, so they can flatter the woman's shape and bring out her feminine qualities (which voters I'm sure love because it doesn't threaten or belittle them) while giving an external image of toughness (which voters love because, well, we're American and enjoy feeling like we can beat down on other people if we wanted to). the only criticism for Ms. Clinton is that the suit looks out-of-place at a nursing home campaign stop, partly because it doesn't match what the other ladies are wearing but more because it crinkles while she bends this-way-and-that to shake hands. take a hint from Obama: shed the coat when you're on the trail and working. if you're going to really get to know America in the next two years, don't treat every room like a subcommittee hearing and don't treat everyone like a congressional staffer.

and, for goodness sakes, don't dress like it either.