I am saying that Giulani and Thompson would have gotten a lot more publicity if they had been more attractive. And that means they needed to have more hair.
In addition to his being bald, Thompson was lazy at campaigning and did not impress people, especially those all-important fund donors. Giulani had a one note campaign, consisting of constantly repeating 9-11,9-11, 9-11, and like Thompson, could not raise the funds.
The Americans people are by and large, trivial and stupid. If they were not, the 30 second spots they are all running, most of them negative, would be ineffective and they would be doing something else. Both parties run mostly stupid ads, and yes, the physical appearance of a candidate DOES make a BIG difference. Maybe not to me, perhaps not to you, but to the voters in general.
If Nixon had not looked shifty and sleazy, he could have beat Kennedy.
Reagan was better looking than Mondale, Olebush was better looking than Dukakis, who was short and rather spindly. Clinton was a lot better looking than Bob Dole.
LBJ was a pretty ugly old coot,and facially was not as good looking as Goldwater, but he had JFK's legacy and he was over 6'4" tall.
McCain looked rather like a toad, and Obama was a lot better looking.
Palin was chosen for her looks, of course. Biden is rather oldish, but he does have some impressive hair transplants.
Again, I am talking about how the voters seem to operate, not me.