May I Suggest Going Light On The Lipstick?

From MSNBC:

The Politico discovers that among the $300 in "communications consulting" the campaign spent was actually for makeup consulting with a company called "Hidden Beauty."

Of course, for anyone who has any knowledge of American presidential election history such an expenditure should come as no surprise. If Richard Nixon had spent whatever the 1960 equivalent of $300 is for a "makeup consult" before the famous first televised debate with John F. Kennedy he may have well won that debate and possibly changed the tone of the entire election.

I'll admit it is a silly little thing, but such is the reality of modern politics.

Of course other folks see the vast right wing conspiracy in everything:

I'm not going to hold my breath until the media oversaturates this story to the point where close to a majority of Americans can identify Romney as the candidate vain enough to plunk down $300 for a makeover, as they have done with John Edwards and his haircut (a Fox News poll from June found that 44 percent of registered voters correctly identified Edwards as the candidate who had spent $400 on a haircut). Yet at the same time it will be interesting to see the extent to which the media is willing to hold Democrats and Republicans to different standards on the issue of campaign expenditures on a candidate's image.

It has only been about three hours since The Politico ran with this story online, but to this point not a single other news service running its stories on Google news has run with the Romney makeover story, and the particular article quoted above has been scantly mentioned within the blogosphere thus far. This might change -- but I'm not betting on the right wing echochamber working too hard on bringing this story to the attention of the broader electorate.

Hmm...the Memeorandum line on the story lists the following news organizations and blogs as being "on the story":

MSNBC, MyDD, Outside The Beltway, Chicago Tribune, The American Mind, Sister Toldjah, The Democratic Daily, Salon, Attytood and Shakesville.

And it's early yet.