How you part your hair may matter.

Article by HairlossTalk.com

"We did try to warn him," Catherine Walter explained by phone recently. "It's sort of sad he didn't listen."

Imagine how Gore feels. A 49-cent comb cost him the presidency.

Catherine Walter is a cultural anthropologist, and John is a nuclear physicist and mathematician. Of course, given those backgrounds, they decided to open a mirror store in Manhattan. "John thought of the theory when he was in college," Catherine said. "He changed his part from the right to the left, and his peers immediately began treating him differently. He spent years trying to talk to people about it, and they just laughed.

"I didn't get involved until 1997, and at first, I thought, "Oh, yeah. Sure.' But I have the correct training to look into it, and I found the statistics back this up." In 1998, she looked at photographs of every current member of Congress and the governors of all 50 states. "It's very difficult to get into office with a right part," she said. "Right parts are about 14 percent across the board."

The part theory applies equally to men and women. Margaret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton both have left parts. "And very few women in Congress have right parts," Walter said. "You don't look at a very feminine woman and think she could lead us."

(Unless it's Sandra Bullock.)

The key here is that changing the part in your hair doesn't change you, at least not dramatically.

But it can change the way others perceive you. "It's very subtle, and it happens on a subconscious level," Walter explained. "And there are a lot of things, like your eyes, for instance, that go into the immediate assessment of a person. "All of this happens very fast. Three seconds after we glance at someone we've just met, we've decided everything we know about them. That's a survival instinct."

What about men who are . . . follicle challenged? Or people who have no part? Or who part their hair down the middle? How do you read them? By the bumps on their head?

"If their hair isn't parted, or they don't have any, that takes that item out of the equation," Walter answered. "Having no part also presents a more balanced thought process." So Moe Howard may have been a genius.

It's not as if the Walters aren't reaching people. In 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter switched his part from right to left after they urged him to (though he never acknowledged the connection). "A Shift at the Top: President Changes Hair Style, Triggers Speculation" read the headline in the Washington Post. It could be easily argued that Carter accomplished more after he left office. Or maybe we just think he did. "He has been the same person his whole life," Walter said. "It's just that we perceive him differently."

Which brings us back to Larry "Lefty" Williams.

"People are usually voting for someone they don't know personally," Walters said, "and many times, they make their choice based on what the person looks like. Or they like the name. Based on our research, I'd have to think Larry Williams has a good chance of winning."

Before Williams supporters run out and celebrate, they may want to consider this:

The Walters also cite Superman as an example of how their theory works. In the 1978 movie starring Christopher Reeve, nerdy Clark Kent had a right part. But Superman wore a left part. So what do Williams and his opponents say about all this?

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