John Kerry's Achilles Heel

Hoke here.

With a scoop.

Everybody thinks they have an answer to the $100,000 question: Why did John Kerry lose?

The morals issues.

Too liberal.

Terezzzzza knocking teachers.

Nancy Boy Edwards.

Lambert Field.

I voted for the $87 billion before I vote against it.

All wrong.

John Kerry lost because of his hair. He is Samsonequse figure, and his pompadour is formidable. But improperly maintained, his stately mane became unkempt, and soon, he strangled on that which had been so firm and fine in the past.

You think I jest?

Let's go back to the summer of 2003 and Laura Blumenfeld's sickly sweet paen to the then-candidate.

An odd excerpt put me on the case:

He stands 6-foot-4. He rides a Harley, plays ice hockey, snowboards, windsurfs, kitesurfs, and has such thick, aggressive hair he uses a brush with metal teeth.

John Kerry: Hunter, Dreamer, Realist

Never in the annals of American presidential politics have we learned of the preferred hairbrush of a potential leader of the free world.

Mere color, you say?

Not so.

The morning after the Feb. 3 primaries, which vaulted Kerry into a virtually insurmountable lead, the candidate was fuming over his missing hairbrush. He and his aides were riding in a van on the way to a Time magazine cover-photo shoot. Nicholson had left the hairbrush behind. "Sir, I don't have it," he said, after rummaging in the bags. "Marvin, f---!" Kerry said. The press secretary, David Wade, offered his brush. "I'm not using Wade's brush," the long-faced senator pouted. "Marvin, f---, it's my Time photo shoot."

Nicholson was having a bad day. Breakfast had been late and rushed and not quite right for the senator. In the van, Kerry was working his cell phone and heard the beep signaling that the phone was running out of juice. "Marvin, charger," he said without turning around. "Sorry, I don't have it," said Nicholson, who was sitting in the rear of the van. Now Kerry turned around. "I'm running this campaign myself," he said, looking at Nicholson and the other aides. "I get myself breakfast. I get myself hairbrushes. I get myself my cell-phone charger. It's pretty amazing." In silent frustration, Nicholson helplessly punched the car seat.

Newsweek

And with the loss of that brush, the campaign began to unravel.

Case closed.