Trump's debate plan: hair today, gone tomorrow
The first GOP debate Thursday night offers front-running Donald Trump the chance to clean up his act and better groom his candidacy.
AS POLITICAL MEDIA somersault over prospects of playfulness from the leading Republican in tomorrow night's first GOP debate, allow me to offer a modest proposal.
My advice to Donald Trump?
Shave the head. Go all Daddy Warbucks on us. Maybe croon a little "Tomorrow."
The sun'll come ooout to-Morrow!
Think about it. Takes away every hair joke, provides a stark, lasting visual and flat out steals the show.
What could anyone else on stage do or say to command any attention or post-debate chatter?
It'd be forever known as "The Clean-up in Cleveland," a bold step by a bald man looking to give America a makeover; out to fix all that's wrong with what he sees as a nation abandoned, orphaned if you will, by its government.
What? Too cavalier?
Not enough respect for the process of picking a president?
Well, I'll tell you what. It strikes me the Donald is not a stickler when it comes to respect - for anyone or anything.
And before the GOP traveling show starts getting some respect, or even is taken a little seriously, it needs to trim its numbers down to those with actual shots at being their party's nominee.
Right now the 10 candidates who make the stage (and the other seven who don't - how long before they're dubbed the Seven Dwarfs?) include too many delusional self-promoters.
Even so-called top-tier contenders, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, just took part in a group suck-up to the Brothers Koch at an exclusive Southern California retreat.
How many thoughtful voters respect that?
Trump rightly labeled it begging for money; something he can point out while swiping a hand over a shorn dome, saying, "I have no skin in that game."
Ba-boom!
Just remember, pandering is an innate political trait.
Why else hold the debate in Cleveland, a place routinely rated among America's worst cities, a place nicknamed the Mistake by the Lake?
The financial website WalletHUB this week said it's one of the nation's four least livable big cities.
The website 24/7 Wall Street last year called Cleveland the seventh "worst-run" city.
In 2013, Forbes rated Cleveland the eighth "most dangerous" city.
And, my personal favorite, Forbes in 2010 called Cleveland the nation's "most miserable" city: weather, crime, income, etc. (though, in fairness, that was the year LeBron James left, and now he's back).
But I digress.
But not really, because the debate at 9 p.m. tomorrow on Fox News is at the same venue, Quicken Loans Arena, where the national GOP convention is next July.
Some Dems might be tempted to squawk now and then: Oh, how fitting, the worst candidates and the worst party debating and meeting in the worst city.
But, kids, Cleveland's in Ohio, the Holy Grail of presidential politics, the must-have state for whoever hopes to win the White House.
I am not making this up.
The last Democrat to win the presidency without carrying Ohio was John Kennedy in 1960. The last Republican to do so? Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
So there's that.
And tomorrow night could be the start of something big for the GOP and Trump.
The bald thing? Research at Penn a few years back shows people see men with shaved heads as powerful, strong and "more dominant."
The research noted Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein, NBA legend Michael Jordan and save-the-day action actor Bruce Willis.
So if Trump heeds my counsel, he could end the debate with a line Willis says in each "Die Hard" film: "yippie ki-yay, . . . !" (Willis fans know the rest.)
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