John Edwards may have gotten a lot of grief for his $1,200 haircuts, but at least he wasn’t spending money on makeup.

Well, “communications consulting” is how presidential candidate Mitt Romney recorded $300 in payments to a California company that describes itself as “a mobile beauty team for hair, makeup and men’s grooming and spa services.”

I’m not a Romney guy (his health care policies in Massachusetts removed him from my list of possible candidates long ago) so I’m allowed to laugh at this.

In all seriousness, though, Edwards’ haircut and Romney’s makeup are political realities.  Like it or not, in this age of 24 hour news and anyone’s cell phone video/picture being able to reach a potential audience of millions on the internet, looking good isn’t a luxury for a politician.  It’s a must.

Maybe we’d all like to believe that politicians are elected more on policies than image, but that’s just not entirely true.