Or President Clinton, who, after spending his first term exercising in highly unflattering, high-riding running shorts, dropped 20 pounds since his knee injury in March. It's much harder than running for county executive. That's a walk in the park compared to trying to lose weight. In the age of TV, image is everything. Moreover, the last bald man to be elected president was Eisenhower.
Physical attractiveness plays a greater part than ever in electability.
Weight, rightly or wrongly, is seen in America to be a personal, and even a moral, failing. This despite the fact that more than half of Americans are overweight. However, it is widely thought that if he is reelected as Montgomery executive next year then he'll run for governor in 2002. Even if he dropped a ton of weight, Duncan would still stand in stark contrast to his predecessor, Neal Potter, who now sits on the county council. Potter is a low-key, wispy, Joadian character who was at least partially motivated to get into Montgomery politics because the Capital Beltway took away his family farm back in '61.