Michael Munger’s hair
I’ve noticed several comments about Michael Munger’s hair on this site. Munger is the current Libertarian Party candidate for Governor in North Carolina.
There’s a noble explanation for his hair, as the News & Observer explains:
The Libertarian candidate for governor may not have gotten a $400 haircut, but he did get a doozy of a trim this week.Munger, chairman of Duke University’s political science department, had his long, curly hair ironed, pulled into pigtails and shorn for the Locks of Love charity.
In recent months, he had grown his hair long, leading one colleague to describe him as looking “like an aging rock star.”
According to his blog, Kids Prefer Cheese, Munger gave his hair away to commemorate his wife’s survival of breast cancer in 2004.
“To all of you who have wondered about, or openly mocked, my hair….that’s why I grew it out,” he wrote.
H/T to Susan.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Great, now I feel like a jerk.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Heh. Don’t feel bad, BillT, It’s a good reminder to check assumptions
Frankly, I preferred the long hair – as Mike said at the State Fair booth a year ago (I paraphrase, naturally): “I think I’ve got the forty-something female demographic sewed up!”
The big news this week in the Munger campaign is that, as the presumptive LP nominee (no announced challengers as yet, and we will nominate in convention), he has been invited to debate the R/D candidates in the fall:
http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/munger_wont_be_chilipunked_after_all
THAT should make for some interesting vid.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Yea, but the average Joe still sees this nutty-looking creature as the LP’s top candidate when they visit LP.org. But hey, the LP has a reputation to keep.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Hey, one’s man’s ‘nutty-looking creature’ is another (wo)man’s ‘total cutie’. C’mon; you know you’ve seen girls swoon over Ron Paul, for heaven’s sake.*
And at least he’s taller than our last gube candidate!:
http://www.wakelp.org/2007/01/education-tax-credits-vs-vouchers.html
*This reference is not to be construed as either anti- or pro-Ron Paul. Please leave me out of the squabbling, kiddies. But I do think he’s adorable.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Mike Munger is a tenured full professor and the chair of the political science department at Duke University. He has a Ph.D. in economics, has published four books and over 80 journal articles and has worked for the Federal Trade Commission.
He is about the most qualified gubenatorial candidate the LP has seen in years.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Well he definitely won’t win then. The public doesn’t go for silly stuff like that.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Hair Harvest: Part I
http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2007/12/hair-harvest-part-i-horror.html
Hair Harvest: Part II
http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2007/12/hai.html
Hair Harvest: Part III
http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2007/12/hair-harvest-part-ii-finale.html
March 14th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
He should have stopped at one of these:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_vKS4ieopgaQ/R20n43RfzJI/AAAAAAAAAPE/d6nKdLdahQo/s1600-h/Flock+of+Seagulls.JPG
(top pick)
or
http://bp2.blogger.com/_vKS4ieopgaQ/R26A43RfzKI/AAAAAAAAAPM/tDlCsw24BAc/s1600-h/Halfway+through+ironing.JPG
(second best).
I think having a new wave/punk rock/Roman helmet hair having, articulate, accomplished economics professor run would have been totally awesome.
Yea, but the average Joe still sees this nutty-looking creature as the LP’s top candidate when they visit LP.org.
The average Joe is most likely to vote for average parties. There are a lot of unaverage Joes and Janes out there when you add them up. And an unconventional appearance send them a signal, too – but it’s a positive signal that the unconventional looking person is an independent thinker, not a mindless followe of the herd or a “suit.”
Which crowd do you think is more likely to be receptive to unconventional ideas and alternative parties?
For example, Loretta Nall got picked on for her open pot smoking and her appearance (too trailer fabulous and, in the famous shot the press picked on, too sexy for politics) and was able to make hey out of it because she is also articulate and intelligent.
Having an attention grabbing appearance is just a hook to get attention from superficial people (ie the vast majority), and that gives a candidate the opportunity to reach enough people to be able to reach a lot more intelligent people – BUT ONLY IF that candidate is also articulate and intelligent and able to use soundbites effectively.
March 14th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
And, by the way, there are a lot of unaverage Joes and Janes out there who admire the person who has the guts to not look conventional, but don’t have the guts (or freedom) to do so themselves because of their jobs, families, and communities. Especialy their jobs.
This, in addition to all the people who DO go around with an “unaverage” appearance themselves.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Susan: It’s just that everytime I feel I can’t make fun of someone, a little bit of me dies inside.
Thank God I still have Daniel Impewacko, Robert Milnes and Eric
Dondero.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:24 am
They must not vote then.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:40 am
Yes, many of them don’t vote.
Hiowever, given what they see as a good enough reason to vote (IE a candidate who makes sense and makes them aware of this by not being a “suit”) they may decide to vote. It does happen.
Many of them do vote. For whatever they consider the lesser evil. And are a lot more susceptible to be broken free of the latter part of that habit by a candidate who catches their attention than by one who doesn’t.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:41 am
...and more suceptible to be broken free of the latter part of that habit than “avegare joes,” which was my original point.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:10 am
“*This reference is not to be construed as either anti- or pro-Ron Paul. Please leave me out of the squabbling, kiddies. But I do think he’s adorable.”
Ah come on Sue have some fun. Get into the pit, get a little dirty & sling some mud. They’ll be drinks, finger foods and loud rock music…we won’t hurt you, we promise…
March 15th, 2008 at 8:54 am
I thought only Republicans and Democrats “debated” about personal issues (i.e. race, gender, hair style). Guess we libertarians aren’t immune from the distraction. By the way, Dr. Munger is not (yet) the Libertarian candidate for governor of NC, although he is the only announced candidate for our nomination.
And he has already been invited to participate in a debate with the Democratic and Republican nominees.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Mike, let me try to give you a couple of example.
Take Unaverage Joe. Joe used to try to do something fun for a living, like professional skateboarding or playing in a heavy metal band. After a few years he figured out he wouldn’t make it. He’s sold some small time weed for a living, got popped one time, did a few weeks in the county. Now he has a shitty cubicle job he hates and has to wear long sleeve shirts five days a week to cover up his tattoos. He is not allowed to have his hair too long and he is pissed about that, but he needs the job. He even had to quit smoking pot because they piss test him at work. He has to pay rent and make child support payments.
Joe does not vote. He’s not a principled anarchist. He’s not too lazy to vote. He has no reason to vote. He knows he is being asked to choose between two steaming, lying piles of shit and sees no reason to vote for either one of them. He probably knows there are some third party or independent candidates running, but he knows they have zero chance to win AND on top of that they are boring and so he never pays attention to anything they say.
Why bother? He would rather listen to music or go to the skatepark. Hell, even the crap on reality TV is more entertaining.
Meanwhile, Unaverage Jane is a single mom working a shitty waitress job to feed her kid. She used to be a punk rocker and still is at heart.
Jane votes, but not with a lot of enthusiasm. She knows the war sucks. One of her best friends has a husband who came back from Iraq as a total mess physically and psychologically. She is worried about the cost of health care and about business slowing down at the diner which could mean losing her job. Jane is thinking she is going to maybe vote for Hillary
or Obama. She knows they are not very good. She just wants the Republicans out.
One day, Jane and Joe are both flipping through the channels and they see a freaky looking dude talk about politics on public access cable. They begin to watch just to get a laugh. If he was not freaky looking, they would have flipped past him way before absorbing anything he had to say.
But all of a sudden something happens. He is making sense. A lot of sense. Saying things that nobody in politics says, which they agree with. For example, he wants to end the drug war. They both know people who ended up in prison over that bullshit.
And then the next day, Jane and Joe do things they never did before. Joe registers to vote. He sends dude a twenty dollar donation. He goes to see him speak in person.
Jane is still thinking she will probably vote for Hillary or Obama in the presidential election, but she is not quite so sure anymore. She knows who she will vote for in the state election, and it ain’t the big boys. She can’t afford to even make a twenty dollar donation, but she is thinking about going to see this candidate speak if she can find one of her friends to babysit that night. Maybe she’ll meet Joe there at the campaign event.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:44 am
The meeting is that weekend.
Jane finds a babysitter at the last minute. She and Joe make it downtown and go to see their candidate in the back of a bar. He gives a great speech.
Most of the people there know each other, but there are a small handful of new people too. Some of the regulars are a little weird. Some are way weird. Some are pretty cool, or at least OK.
Joe is totally sold. He’ll be back at the next event, and is going to tell his friends. Jane is not as impressed. Some of the weird old guys are kind of checking her out a little too much. Well, more than a little really. They are pretty much drooling, In fact one of them is actually physically drooling. She starts talking to Joe mostly to get away from the weird old guys. And they really like each other. Joe has a girlfriend but he is kind of tired of her and they have been on and off. Jane is thinking maybe she’ll come back next time to get to know Joe better.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Oh by the way, the next event is a protest against the income tax at the post office on April 15. One of the things dude said that kind of struck a chord with Jane and Joe is that the government takes way too much money out of their pay check. They can definitely relate to that.
He gave a lot of good examples about how that money is being wasted in totally outrageous ways and even used to make things a lot worse. It makes Jane and Joe angry to think about what they could be doing with that money instead.
And about all the ways they and their friends are being hurt by some of the things the government is doing with their hard earned money.
I’m hoping we’ll see Jane with her kid and Joe and a couple of Joe’s friends plus some of the other people from the meeting and a couple that couldn’t make it that night together with the candidate Mr. Dude at the post office that evening. Maybe they’ll see some of you there too.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Paulie,
You might have the begininnings to a really good “alternative” romance novel or movie. Bro, you might be missing your calling! See ya in Denver.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Great novella Paulie. Now address the central issue: Does Susan like long haired rocker guys? What can the average libertarian do to stop that?
March 15th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Well, I like his hair. I’m sick of the other candidates’ “executive hair,” and as a long-haired adult male myself, I know that one’s brain does not turn to mush when one’s hair reaches one’s collar.
March 15th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I think he looks like the love child of the Brady Bunch show that hooked up withe the show American Greatest Hero
March 15th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Paulie’s story makes sense. There’s a lot of people who’d be involved in politics if it wasn’t for all the bs and clubbishness that goes on.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
See ya in Denver.
Looking forward to it. You bring the Tennessee whiskey. I think I know someone who might have something to smoke. If I have time I’ll see if there is some late spring ski powder I can catch up high in the mountains.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Great novella Paulie. Now address the central issue: Does Susan like long haired rocker guys? What can the average libertarian do to stop that?
OK, if you insist.
Warning: this is a fictional scenario involving Susan, but I am in no way suggesting Susan would or should do this in real life, and it is not meant to be offensive. If it crosses the line, I apologize in advance.
=
It’s late May, 2008. Denver.
Susan is bummed because we lost the floor fight at the convention for Restore 04 and because Bob Barr is the presidential nominee of the LP.
She is mulling her future in or out of the LP when a kindly wealthy Libertarian friend offers her a gift to cheer her up.
He has been called away on a business emergency and has a front row ticket to the REO Speedwagon-Journey show that night he can’t use. He gives it to her.
Susan goes to the show and as the concert goes on, of the aging 1980s arena studs on stage catches her eye. And she his.
He gives her a back stage pass.
Under the influence of a couple drinks, as they talk, she faces a dilemma. Should she be responsible, use her plane ticket back to NC, go back to her husband and her job and her house? Or should she throw it all away and hop on a cross-continent Journey in the REO Speedwagon with her new crush? Probably, she does the adult responsible thing and goes back home and spends the rest of her life wondering about what might have been.
But in our story, she hops on the tour bus.
We in the LP don’t hear from Susan again.
For eleven years.
The year is 2019. Upstate New York. Woodstock Plus 50, Lollapalooza, Ozzfest and Vans Warped Tour are all playing right next to each other.
Susan is the tour manager of REO Speedwagon. Or is it Journey? Anyway.
Jane and Joe are there with their four kids. They are traveling around the country too, as professional LP field reps, and home schooling their kids on the road. Yes, the LP finally got professional field reps last year (2018).
They have a LP booth, and Susan stops by in between the Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers sets.
If anyone wants to write the next installment of this story, it’s all yours.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Fuck, Paulie, Metallica and Chilli Peppers in 2018? Get realistic, won’t you?
(FTR, I’d definitely see geriatric Metallica, REO Speedwagon, Journey and just maybe the RHCPs.)
March 15th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
No my belle, not 2018.
2019.
And, yes, the Rolling Stones will be there, walkers and all.
March 15th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
My significant other has hair almost as long as mine, so far be it from me to suggest that any man get a haircut, LOL. I really don’t think Munger’s hair is very long at all, and I wouldn’t have thought twice about it if it were not the subject of this entry.
I’ll admit that the “before” style looks like something one might see in a bad ‘70s porno, though. LOL
Seriously, I’m far more interested in the brain that’s underneath all that hair.
March 15th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Unaverage Joe and Unaverage Jane see a guy on tv who has different hair, but he aint exactly a rocker. He looks more like a late 70s or early 80s porn “actor” or WWF wrestler. Still they decide to check out what he has to say. Wow this dude sounds pretty cool. But wait.. He’s a professor? Some kind of Doctor, even? He’s not one of them. He’s “The MAN.” He went to school half his life and makes six figures. He’s not punk; just a guy with long hair. He can’t relate the problems facing a waitress and middle class cubicle dweller. These politicians are all the same. Joe and Jane decide to vote for Obama or Hillary because they are Democrats- obviously they care a lot about poor people and “regular” people. Even though they are millionaires, at least they have spent 35 years helping poor people and being community activists. They don’t have time for rich people’s shit like Economics.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
John,
Flawless.
It is easier to relate to a phony community activist who sucks tax dollars relentlessly, advocates more of the same for others with a vengeance, and makes seven figures than to an educator (a noble people-helping profession, is it not?) who works for a private university and (presumably) makes six? Well, I guess the first one makes his living out of the money that comes out of your paycheck every week and is dedicting his life to making more come out. The second does not, and is dedicating his life to teaching people why you should be able to keep more of the money you earn.
OK, in some people’s case, I guess.
But you know, we can’t just assume all people are the same, can we? I talk to people who have libertarian instincts all the time. Average and unaverage Janes and Joes.
Guess what? Most of them don’t vote LP. Many of them do not vote. Many do vote D and R.
I’m thinking that’s mostly a poor LP marketing/branding issue.
Why do I think that?
Well, I’ve found that a lot of people like Unaverage Dudette Loretta Nall.
Example number one.
I was doing ballot access petitioning at a Walmart in Grand Island, Nebraska and an Unaverage Joe asked me which party I wanted to make sure we kept equal voting rights for. I said Libertarian.
He lit up and started saying good things about Loretta (although he thought she was from Georgia rather than Alabama). He reads her blog.
You should read it too, if you don’t. She does great in the black community, for example. Does the LP usually do well in the black community? Yet there are studies that show that black people score libertarian quintile more than white people, yet how many do you see at an LP meeting?
A lot of people the LP fails miserably in appealing to have personally experienced government injustice, or their friends and family have. They can and should be potential converts.
It doesn’t happen.
Why not? The LP does not speak their language. When by chance they look at LP meetings on C-span or go to one in person, LP people are not people who look or sound like them.
Wrap your mind around this: with tens of thousands of data points on the OPH/Nolan Quiz I personally conducted I found that the typical distribution at colleg campuses was clustered left-libertarian-centrist.
How’s the LP doing on campuses?
By the way Loretta’s appeal cuts across class lines. Back in the early and mid 90s as I was evolving from leftist to libertarian I ran a drug policy reform student club at the U of Alabama and my faculty advisor was a lefty ACLU type law professor.
I went and visited him last year and mentioned I know Loretta and he lit up too and said he though she would have been the best candidate and it was a real shame she was not able to make it on the ballot. He said a lot of his lefty friends voted for her.
Now we don’t know how many votes she got but I have this sneaking suspicion it was way more than officially reported. Especially since a bunch of poll workers bitched and moaned and threw a fit about having to do their jobs and count write in votes afterwards, and even proposed a bill to make write-in candidates have to pay for having their votes counted.
Gee, I wonder if the LP could benefit from having the votes of my law professor emeritus friend and his lefty friends – you know, people like professors, artists, musicians, journalists, teachers, gay guys, and others who are on the left mostly due to cultural/social issues (and peace issues in some cases)?
Nah, we don’t need their support. We don’t need student clubs at campuses. Nah. All we need is more white male upper middle age upper middle class computer programming professionals with conservative/libertarian views.
We don’t need the socially diverse group that made up the Ron Paul revolution. Why doesn’t the LP look more like that, or like self-identified libertarians on facebook who are – to take just one example – roughly evenly male/female and whose racial (and, probably, economic class) demographics are much more like the USA’s than like the LP’s?
Couldn’t have anything to do with marketing, could it?
Final piece of evidence to chew on: last year I circulated LP, GP and CP in Arkansas all at the same time. I volunteered to throw in the LP in the mix for free other than a motel room state chair Gerhardt bought us for a few days.
When I told people I was putting all three independent parties on the ballot, I had a lot – and I mean a LOT ask me for the one for the Libertarians. They were asking for us by name, without me having yet uttered the word.
It was the most positive surge for LP I had seen in ten years, even way back when the party was about two or three times its present membership level.
There seems to be a libertarian wave in the air.
Ron Paul seemed to pick up on a lot of it.
So far, the LP hasn’t much.
I wonder if they will figure out a way to make that change?
March 15th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
“All we need is more white male upper middle age upper middle class computer programming professionals with conservative/libertarian views.
We don’t need the socially diverse group that made up the Ron Paul revolution.
Ron Paul seemed to pick up on a lot of it.
So far, the LP hasn’t much.”
According to “SOME PEOPLE” Ron Paul only appeals to angry middle aged white guys who have racist overtones. Of course these are people who spend more time in front of their computer monitor than they do out talking to the public and who’ve probably never been to a Ron Paul Meet Up Group.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
BTW JCJ
Prior to being First Dragon Lady of Arkansas, USA and then Senator from the Imperial State of New York, and even before the Every Rose Has Its Thorn Law Firm (Smell a little bit closer, roses really smell like doo doo), Hillary “Big” Rodham Clinton was….wait….no…could it be….
A University of Arkansas law Professor?
Sheeeit.
I guess she’s disqualified, since unlike Obama and McCain she once was – and therefore, must still be – “THE MAN” .
Maybe that’s her real problem. Once upon a time she was a professor. So, she is like way, way, more elitist and untrustworthy than McCain and Obama.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Damn Paulie you still tickin’? Gotta agree with you. Having done a bunch of booths there is more than a small streak of libertarian lightning running through this country’s voters. We, that is the LP, just needs to get out and reach out for them.
Seems management suffer from dead butt syndrome. I probably didn’t win any friends with that comment, but what the hell.
MHW
March 17th, 2008 at 2:25 am
It’s alarming at how much you can learn about the sexual proclivities of libertarians from reading Third Party Watch.