WASHINGTON, D.C. He is, say those close to him, frustrated. “Mitt’s always been a ‘doer’,” says barber Mike Schwermer about his long-time client Willard “Mitt” Romney. “He’s not the kind of guy who’s going to retire to one of his six or eight homes and reminisce about the glory days of his youth, when his hair was the envy of all the crew-cut males at Brigham Young.”
And so, despite his resolution never to run for political office again after his loss to Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential race, sources say Romney is ready to run again, but this time for a higher office. “The Presidency of the Hair Club for Men is viewed as the world’s most influential platform for the bald and balding,” says Dr. Sanjeet Prybala of the University of New Delhi. “When you think of the impact you’d have around the world, as opposed to crappy rectangular states like Utah, there’s really no comparison.”
Romney has huddled with political advisors who say he has a path to victory over Joe Biden, who has relied on hair “plugs” to conceal his receding hairline since 2008, and Donald Trump, whose retro “duck’s ass” haircut remains a mystery to follicular science. “No one has ever actually seen Trump prepare his hair for a day’s campaigning,” says Hiram Provo, owner of the Gentlemen III barber shop in Keokuk, Iowa. “Supposedly he showers, combs it forward, lets it dry, then arranges it in a bouffant, but you’ve never seen him in the same room as Edd ‘Kookie’ Burns, have you?”
The Hair Club for Men is an American hair restoration, regrowth and replacement company with locations in the United States and Canada. It was founded in 1976 by Seymour “Sy” Sperling, who became famous for his tagline “I’m not only the Hair Club President, I’m also a client.” Like the American Presidency, the Hair Club Presidency is not determined by direct popular vote, but rather by ballots cast by deans of barber colleges across the country. “Yes the process is antiquated and un-democratic,” says Ned Hurst, a professor at Central States School of Hair Styling in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “But millions of people around the world do just fine without democracy, so what’s your point?”
To win the Hair Club Presidency Romney would need a total of 270 votes, but the personal wealth he has accumulated over a successful business career is of limited value to him due to campaign finance laws. “You can give sticks of chewing gum and lollypops to kids when you’re done cutting their hair, but gifts to adults are verboten,” says Hurst. “The guys evade the law by stealing our copies of Playboy.”