Presidential Physiognomy

Knowingly or unknowingly, historically Americans have preferred certain physical traits over others in their presidential candidates. Those biases may be even more relevant in the current atmosphere of oversaturation of the media with televised debates and You Tube clips where every facial tic, blink of the eye, sweaty underarms and other physical features of the contenders are visible to voters. Newsweek's Andrew Romano took stock of John McCain and Barack Obama's physical appearances and compared them to winners and losers from the past for their predictive value. The score?  It's a draw. Ah! We may now be called upon to do the unthinkable - make our choices based on where they stand on issues!

There are many ways to predict who'll win the White House in November. The most fun? Physical appearance. A feature-by-feature face-off:

Height: Contrary to the CW, the shorter candidate has actually won four of the last nine elections. But at 5 feet 7, McCain is 6.5 inches shorter than Obama. The last time anyone overcame such a huge height gap was in '52—1852. We haven't elected a shorter-than-average prez since Ben Harrison.
Advantage:Obama

Eye Color: Of our 43 presidents, 38 have had blue, gray or hazel eyes. Two exceptions: disgraced Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon. Sure, light eyes used to be more common. But even as the general incidence fell from 50 to 16 percent over the last century, our presidential peepers stayed 89 percent non-brown.
Advantage:McCain

Handedness: Only two POTUSes before '74 were known to be left-handed—Garfield and Truman. But since then, a full 66 percent—Ford, Reagan, Bush I and Clinton—were born southpaws, compared with only 10 percent of the greater population. And either Obama or McCain would continue the trend. How gauche.
Advantage:None

Baldness: The U.S. has elected only five hairless presidents, and four of them won the White House before 1880, when voters weren't forced to endure the sight of their shiny, uncovered craniums on TV. Ike beat a bald guy (Adlai Stevenson). Ford wasn't elected. And Dick Cheney wasn't technically president.
Advantage:Obama

Melanin: An exclusive NEWSWEEK analysis has determined that precisely 100 percent of our presidents have been white.
Advantage: McCain

The Final Score: A tie. Maybe there's something to that whole "waiting until Nov. 4 for the actual results" thing after all.