Taking political vanity to a whole new level

January 23, 2008

I suspect all politicians, to some extent, are concerned with their personal appearance, but this example, from Texas’ 22nd, is simply hilarious.

Some politicians talk about cutting the fat, but this one was serious.

Congressional candidate Dean Hrbacek appears slimmer than usual in a new campaign brochure because a photo of his head was affixed to the image of a different body.

While the mailer sent to voters this week by the former Sugar Land mayor says “Dean’s record speaks for itself,” his physique clearly does not.

The picture, presented as a true image of the candidate, is a computerized composite of Hrbacek’s face and someone else’s slimmer figure, in suit and tie, from neck to kneecaps.

Hrbacek’s campaign manager, Scott Broschart, conceded that the image is a fake, but said the candidate has just been so busy meeting voters that he didn’t have time to have his picture taken for the mailing. Broschart added that the flap is unimportant, because voters “are more concerned with the issues as opposed to pretty photo shoots.”

Somehow, I have a hunch this defense won’t work.

John Bresnahan added, “I love this guy already and hope he wins the GOP nomination to take on Lampson. It will be too much fun.”

Agreed. Any campaign that would pull a stunt like this is bound to be the gift that keeps on giving.

The political equivalent of the 9/11 guy or Evil Bert being photoshopped into everything.

  • Anyone dumb enough to vote for a guy for what he looks like deserves to get swindled.

    I have little doubt that such things are good for a percentage or two.

    Research shows facial hair costs 4% to a candidate. What? Never noticed the womanly faces of almost every presidential candidate? Honest Abe and Teddy Roosevelt would never be on Rushmore the way they are if TV had been around in their day.

    Americans thin out the talent pool by placing value on B.S.

  • Isn’t that Tom DeLay’s old seat?

    The campaign must have figured that voters there liked to have pretty lies told to them. One assumes that proving you could misrepresent reality in pursuit of political power is sort of a ‘mandatory maneuver’ in the Republican primary in that district.

  • Let me set the record straight.
    First and foremost this is Delay’s old district.

    Since I live in Sugar Land I really like Dean Hrbacek, he’s been a damn good mayor and being a liberal that isn’t easy to admit. What he will do in Washington is anyone’s guess.

    The photoshop fiasco was invented by the press. Take a look at the guy, then at the mailer. I defy anyone to tell me they can spot the weight difference. But the press, cough, cough, are running with this like he shaved off 50 lbs. If anything, it appears to me he might have picked a shorter body so that it would fit on the mailer.

    Slow news day ??

  • Thanks for the Romney montage, Deborah. I wish that one of the supermarket tabloids would do one of their “knifestyles of the rich and famous” features on him, pointing out where the nips and tucks have been done.

    ScottW: The only picture of Hrbacek (besides the photoshopped one in question) that I have been able to find makes him look soft and a bit fleshy. If Hrbacek isn’t a marathon runner, then the photo grossly understates his weight. The body in that picture belongs to a distance runner. It’s obvious, even when obscured by the loose-hanging suit.

    “No time to have a picture taken” is a pretty weak excuse.

  • Never underestimate the stupidity of the Sugarland resident.

    As is in evidence by poster number six.

    Yeah, you’re a liberal dude. Sure you are.

    They loved Tom Delay and they will love any rethug who runs for office. It’s the stepford suburb.

  • I wrote about this a few days ago and included a photo of Hrbacek with Governor Perry from his Flickr page and he not only looks quite a bit heavier than in the mailer, but his face looks fatter. I don’t know what the deal is, but I wonder if the head is from a younger picture of him. If I hadn’t gotten the picture from his page, I wouldn’t assume it was him.

    As far as Scott W at #6, what are you talking about? The mailer doesn’t even show him below the knees. How could it make him look shorter? But I agree with you that this isn’t a big deal. One Republican is as good as another as they all share the same brain. So what difference does it make if the body isn’t his either?

  • Really uncle walt ?? You know nothing about me, yet because I like a mayor who has turned Sugar Land from some weird quasi-suburbia hellhole into a city with real character and it’s own brand, I am somehow a troll ??

    FYI, he took Sugar Land to #3 on Money Magazine’s Best Places to Live.
    http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2006/top100/index.html

    Okie.
    The Chronicle’s original reporting of the ‘scandal’ had the pictures side by side. I can only assume they removed them after realizing their words were a bit of an stretch.

    Go look and tell me that mailer was an issue.
    http://www.deanforcongress.com/

    For the record, I hope he loses, we like him here and Washington will probably eat him alive.

  • ScottW:

    Doctor Biobrain found what I could not. Here is the full-length photoshopped version of Hrbacek from his own pamphlet, along with a photo of his reality-based, corpulent self:

    http://biobrain.blogspot.com/2008/01/republican-photo-magic.html

    OK. I went. I looked. Now I’m telling you. The mailer IS an issue. It’s patently phony. To someone like me who lacks the advantages of living in Sugarland, Texas, it implies that Hrbacek is just as phony as the picture.

    Tom Delay was zany enough. Then came Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. Now Hrbacek. You gotta wonder if there’s not something in the water down there besides sugar.

  • OK. I have been away from my desk all day.
    Wow. I am telling you he was never that big. Swear.

    I am really shocked that he has been eating so well. Had I not seen the picture I would not have believed it.

    I still like the guy and I can not believe his campaign could not have figured out a work around his weight for promotional pamphlets.

    Either way, I eat my words, the deception is a big deal.
    Just when you think there is an R with some integrity…

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