I remember the last time John McCain ran for president. His wife, Cindy, had her hair shorn to her skull, her gray in full view. No disrespect intended, but she looked like a holocaust victim or a cancer patient. Truly.

Even her clothes needed help. Her blazers were boxy; her look dignified, but frumpy and old. McCain already suffered from ageism. He needed his wife to make him look younger, not older.

Add to that the obvious fact that having a woman standing behind you who looks like she already is the first lady certainly helps your chances at being the party nominee and winning the general election. It has a certain subliminal, psychological impact.

Enter the makover.

I don't know if Cindy hired a consultant or a stylist or if she travels with wardrobe, hair, and makeup people, but she sure looks like she does. Her hair is now blonde, cut in the "Republican flip" just like the Fox News reporters. Sometimes Cindy's hair is up in a French twist; others a low chignon. But always classically styled.

Her suits are tailored, her jackets shorter, as country club as it gets. And the color. The colors of her suits are young and fresh. Lemon yellow. Bubblegum pink. I think I even saw her in lavendar once. Spring colors. Colors that speak of new life, rebirth.

And the pearls... We all remember Jackie's three strand pearls. Cindy now wears four. She also wears pearl earrings. Either studs or a dandy dangle.

For years, many of us wondered if Cindy might be a liability for John. In 1989, she developed an addiction to prescription painkillers following spinal surgeries and stress over the Keating Five scandal. She even began stealing medication from her own non-profit, the American Voluntary Medical Team. In 1992, John and his parents staged an intervention to get her into treatment.

Unfortunately, John also fired the AVTM director Tom Gosinski who retaliated by leaking Cindy's story to the press. She came forward to tell the press herself and thereby control the damage. But that was then and this is now. It seems Cindy has had two makeovers: one in rehab and another more external one. These days, when she stands beside or behind her husband on stage, she looks young, stylish, presidential -- in a first lady kind of way.

Some people say that looks don't matter, style doesn't matter. It's what's on the inside that counts. But in a media age when many people make decisions based on what they see on TV, I wonder if that's true. Don't many of us believe that Kennedy's looks gave him the edge over Nixon in the first televised debates?

One thing is certain: the packaging of a presidential candidate includes the packaging of the wife who is often in the camera's frame. Those who understand this lesson well have applied a little spit and polish on Cindy, transforming her style into one that is younger and reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy's tailored suits, pearls and pins, and -- let's not forget -- her flip hairstyle.

Clearly style does matter. Even in politics. As Polonius advises his son Laertes, "Apparal oft proclaims the man."

March 2008