American Beat: Bald-Faced Prejudice

The American civil rights movement took a huge step backwards last week as yet another minority candidate was trounced in an election that should have highlighted America's supposed tolerance towards people of different ethnic, racial and class groups.

In this case, of course, I'm talking about bald men.

The victim this time was former Massachusetts state senator Warren Tolman, a proud bald man, who lost the Democratic primary for governor last week. The loss was particularly bitter for the bald because Tolman had intentionally used his lack of hair to get on the radar screen in the race, running ads that showed him rubbing his shiny pate while standing in a barbershop surrounded by equally hairless men.

Before these eye-catching ads, Tolman was polling at less than 1 percent in the four-candidate race. But once his self-deprecatory shtik hit the airwaves, his obvious abhorrence of cover-ups sent him soaring to nearly 20 percent. One ad even had his wife saying, "I think he's hot." (I did like that ad, but you know the American political system is in trouble when a candidate feels the need to have his wife take to the airwaves to confess that she's still attracted to her husband.)

"The 'Bald is Beautiful' thing put him on the map," said Seth Gitell, political writer for the BostonPhoenix, who spent several days watching voters wig out for Tolman on the campaign trail. "People would come over to him and rub his head for good luck. Everyone knew him. I was with him at a Greek festival and even the women running the loukamades stand--who couldn't even speak English--knew him. I thought, 'Man, this guy has really broken through.'"

In the end, though, Tolman lost to the inept state comptroller Shannon O'Brien and second-place finisher Robert Reich (which is amazing, considering how freakin' short Reich is).