Project President
Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House is a nonfiction book by American conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. A 2010 Thomas Nelson ebook listing on Google Books gives the title as a political-science work of 306 pages, and a hardback listing for the earlier edition gives Thomas Nelson as publisher, ISBN 9781595551009, and a January 15, 2008 publication date.[1][2]
Subject
The book examines the role of image, presentation, personality, clothing, physical appearance, family narrative, and media packaging in United States presidential campaigns. Google Books summarizes it as a study of American interest in presidential looks and appearance, including examples such as Abraham Lincoln's beard, John F. Kennedy's hatless inauguration, and John Kerry's reported cosmetic surgery before the 2004 campaign.[3] HarperCollins UK later described the book as an argument about the relationship between candidates' appearances and electoral success, and about how visual style can communicate messages to voters.[4]
In biographical context, Project President belongs to Shapiro's early sequence of polemical and media-critical books, after Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth and Porn Generation. Publishers Weekly, in its author page for Shapiro, summarized that sequence by saying that Brainwashed attacked left-wing influence on university students, Porn Generation criticized social liberalism, and Project President described candidates as products sold to voters.[5]