Who's the Sexiest of Them All?
With an election looming, voters focus on what's really important.
By Ali Wentworth
Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama.
Photo Credit: Arnold Turner/Wire Image
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I was standing in the kitchen with my 10-year-old goddaughter when she plugged in her pink iPod and began shaking her prepubescent booty (her bootylita?). Then, arms flailing in the air, she sang these off-pitch words: "I got a crush on Obama." I placed my iced tea gently on the table. Excuse me, but when did presidential candidates become objects of young lust? I don't recall peering up from under my patchwork quilt and seeing a Jimmy Carter poster next to a shirtless David Cassidy.
I can't tell you how many Washington dinners I've attended lately where the topic of how to stop the bloodshed in Iraq suddenly gives way to who's sexier, Barack or Hillary? Not long ago, Clinton could be seen on C-SPAN2 discussing the cost of higher education, which prompted an article in the Washington Post focused on the fact that the black V-neck shirt she wore during the speech seemed to reveal a bit of cleavage. Will that small airspace between her breasts really win her more votes? Personally, I'd rather have Clinton focusing on health-care reform than icing her nipples.
But it's not just the lone female candidate getting all the scrutiny. On Hardball recently, Chris Matthews wondered aloud what makes Fred Thompson sexy. "Is it the mature older-man [thing]? ... can you smell the English Leather on this guy?" Surely Thompson's virile effect owes something to his curvaceous blonde wife young enough to be his daughter, with the stripperlike name of Jeri. (Imagine the White House Christmas card.) Meanwhile, Mitt Romney's conventional handsomeness is being upheld as the sharpest arrow in his quiver. Yes, he's chiseled and has good skin, but will he raise taxes? That's not sexy!
They say that in the past two elections, votes were cast on the basis of with whom you'd want to have a beer. This time, it's about with whom you'd want to sleep. Maybe the country is experiencing a seven-year itch? Seven years of a sexless administration will do that. President Bush, with his "lights out at 9" policy (I picture pajamas and twin beds), and Laura looking so pinched and frustrated — the populace is champing at the bit for some sort of hot political climax.
