"All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway."

-Harry S. Truman

Especially the Czech one who lacks any significant real powers. However, the position is very glorified in our culture, filling the vacuum left after the fall of the monarchy. Despite being powerless, the presidential tradition and image started with T.G. "Daddy" Masaryk is that of a mixture of a beloved infallible despot, condescending paternal autocrat and overall stately demigod. So it would be nice if this post was open to some actual people :)

If all the Czech presidency is about is aesthetics as I believe you said, then why in the world would you elect him? My opinions aside, that doesn't look good. No way you can think it does.

No, I don't think presidency is all about aesthetics. The president is a head of state and a figure that can significantly influence the public discourse for the five/ten years in function and basically gets a free pass for topping any popularity ladder among politicians because of the way Czechs view the presidential post. Which is why I support Franz's candidacy because he fits the qualities I expect from any serious candidate and which is why I am preemptively appalled by the backlash that will arise over his looks. Every time I saw him on a major TV programme, it had to be pointed out that he's tattooed everywhere except for his palms, with the distinct message that it makes him some sort of a circus attraction rather than a rennaissance man. Which sucks. For him and for everyone who differs from the norm and strives for success. Which is nothing new and this is but an example but it me struck me today so I had to post it.

I have to admit I would question the judgement of a man who chooses to go through a large amount of pain and spend a small fortune merely to satisfy his vanity. Aside from that it will almost certainly cause problems when dealing with foreign heads of state. He would have come across as pretty exceptional to make up for these drawbacks.

Who cares, he's an anti-communist like most of the Czech ruling class. Same old same old.

I don't know shit about the Czech government. I know that the old regime was practically demolished by the Soviets. That's about it. Based on my lack of knowledge, I see nothing but problems with someone who has a public appearance like that. I see nothing remotely close to such an appearance in any other high office in the world that I can think of off the top of my head. He'd automatically become the laughingstock of any election in the USA simply because of his appearance, that much I know.

Baldness, it has been suggested, stops you winning elections if your opponent isn't also bald. In the UK and US, its has been a long time since Presidents or Prime Ministers who were bald beat those who weren't at the ballot box.

Also most US presidents were taller than the opponents they beat. While almost all the exceptions were sitting presidents holding onto the post for a second term...

@Octavious
Unless they are like Warren Buffet or Ingvar Kamprad, all rich people spend small fortunes on their personal vanities so that doesn't say much. Of course, it's his money so while a good material for tabloids, whether he spends it on tattoos or yachts is ultimately not a public concern. The same could be said about the pain and with the ever greater penetration of plastic surgery among the population, I would say that the short-term pain from getting tattoos done is quite comparable to the long-term pain you suffer from after the operation. This comparison is actually interesting: would you preffer a candidate who underwent a plastic surgery to become more likeable among others to a candidate who got tattoos for his own pleasure? Isn't the first one desperate while the second is confident? I don't claim he is the candidate for everyone but to know this, people have to look past his unorthodox appearance (for the record, I would never willingly get any tattoo or piercing) and listen to what he has to say and what he thinks. Otherwise it's an example of us wasting the intellectual potential because of a single superficiality. Penalize him for not looking representative enough but don't disregard him just because of that, just like you said.

@Putin
You are a little out of touch with the current reality, even the communist themselves are communists only by name and that's a party that didn't even bother to repaint its image after 1989 unlike other communist parties in neighbouring countries. It's a party that got Klaus elected in 2003. It's a party so devoid of notable characters that they nominated a right-wing nationalist lunatic eurodeputee in 2008 as their presidential candidate even though she never was in the party and got into Brussels only thanks to a TV mogul that put her behind him on the ballot in his pet political project because she was a news anchor on his TV. They still don't have their own candidate for the upcoming elections and it seems they will back-up a social democratic renegade that ran against Klaus already back in 2003 and who was previously a prime minister of a government with the biggest communist influence after 1989 and THEY STILL BACKED KLAUS OVER HIM. The Czech communist party is about as revolutionary as British hereditary peers. Once a year on May 1st they organize a parade and for the rest of the year, they sit in parliament enjoying their inflated salaries while doing nothing because they are always in opposition and other opposition parties actually have to do something to lure people on the vision of credible opposition. Communists just sit there and enjoy automatic anti-establishment street cred because they are communists. And when their radical young members try to spark the revolutionary ideas, they are eager to help with shutting them down because if the party got banned for it, where would they get money for paying bills and mortgages? Being a communist deputy is a great ruling class job. And they're hiring - if you're under 30, you have a 1 in 100 to get into the Chamber of Deputies as a communist. If you're over 30, the chance plummets to 1 in 3000.

@bo_sox
Depending on what you mean by "old regime", it was demolished in 1918 by democrats, 1938 by Nazis and Allies, 1948 by communists and in 1989 by democrats again although from 1918 on, the presidential ideal is pretty much same despite the regime changes. But that's not really important for this issue so don't be discouraged by not knowing shit about it. I know he will be a laughingstock even in the Czech Republic so any cultural differences can be thrown away anyway. But if looking funny is all it takes to become a mere circus attraction, we failed to listen as children. Children are taught not to laugh at Stephen Hawking or Quasimodo because of what they look like. They are taught not to point fingers at strangers in various clothes or with exotic hairstyles. So why this regression, why laughing at Franz because of his appearance? Wouldn't it be ultimately more fulfilling to laugh at him for being batshit crazy like Rick Perry? Not that he is but not giving him chance seems rather cheap and uncivilized, especially since he has a track record of a person who achieved something and has valuable things to say. In my third link, president Klaus and various academic officials are not laughing at him so it couldn't be hard, right?

@TGM
Franz is an extreme example so what you brought up has more lasting importance for multiple groups of people. You are not a serious contender in the West if you're bald or fat. Heck, if you had a single major visible tattoo you wouldn't be a serious contender. You could probably make an exception for baldness if it was induced by chemotheraphy or such in which case it would be a heartbreaking story of determination that could actually be an asset. Which is good and I am happy society got at least this far but there is something seriously wrong if being bald because of genetic predisposition pretty much ruins your chances while being bald by chemotherapy wins you affection and boosts your chances.

@ora
Good, add height to the list. You cannot be bald, short, fat, tattooed, pierced... and of course if you're old, you must not look so. That's a lot of people going down the drain right at the start. And don't even dare to be a tattooed woman! For such an important morale figure, you sure have to go through a lot of preliminary pageants. Are we really so brainwashed by the constant visual barrage that we could no longer elect someone visually standard like Lincoln, not to mention someone actually extraordinary like Franz?

Really, for being such a ruling class party, it's a wonder that your wonderful "liberal" governments try every nefarious means they can think of to ban or dissolve it and have done so every since the dark days of that neoliberal hero, Vaclav Havel. And despite this pressure, it continues to get a solid vote share and have an impressive youth wing, which itself is the target of pressure. But yes, the KSCM is a Eurocommunist-ish party, despite their keeping of the old iconography, and despite their youth wing repudiating private property. Their model is the Communists of Cyprus.

But anyway that was a big rant to distract from the fact that your boy is an anti-communist and not even an interesting one. At least Bobosikova had some good views on foreign policy, which was pretty important to the KSCM when the Czechs were debating being NATO's missile shield puppets. They supported her to put pressure on the social democrats and greens to abandon their support of the missile shield. It's called strategy.