"The problem is they've both got a really good head of hair," he said.
Hitzig - a transplant specialist who said he worked with an unnamed presidential candidate in the '90s and is now helping "somebody big in city government" - boasts his theory has never failed him.
"Go back to each election and look at it. [Modern] Presidents who are bald or have bad hair have always got in through proxy rather than by election," he said.
He noted that hair-challenged heads of state Lyndon Johnson took office after President Kennedy was assassinated, and Gerald Ford took over after Richard Nixon's resignation.
"Who's been elected who hasn't had a great head of hair? Look at [Ronald] Reagan, [Jimmy] Carter, even Nixon had good hair when he was younger," Hitzig said. "George Bush Sr. had a good head, but then he went against Clinton, who had exceptional hair.
"Eisenhower didn't have much hair, but he ran against Adlai Stevenson, who had even less than him. Herbert Hoover was bald, but it was in the pre-television era, so image didn't matter as much."
His theory works elsewhere in the world, too, he says, citing Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher in Britain.
"The only exception is Russia, where it seems the candidate with the less hair usually wins," he said.
"Hair makes a man, and it makes him more desirable. Kerry's in his 60s, but he looks younger because of his hair. Imagine him if he was bald. He would look nowhere near as attractive to voters as he does."
Hitzig, a surgeon with offices on E. 67th St. and in Rockville Centre, L.I., set up his business 28 years ago after having a hair transplant himself.
He said, "The good hair of both candidates could mean actual politics play a bigger part in this election.
"If I had to call it, I would give it to Kerry. He's got that old-school Bostonian look going on, which gives him John F. Kennedy desirability."
At their first campaign appearance together, Kerry joked that his pairing with vice presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) represented the best hair in the race.
But a poll by Wahl Clipper Corp., conducted shortly after, revealed 51% thought Bush had the best hair, compared with only 30% for Kerry.
Cutting to the chase
They have the hair, but do they have the style? Fabian Lliguin, owner of Cocoon studio on the upper East Side, who has worked all over the world, offers some makeover suggestions for the presidential candidates:
"For Bush, I would cut it closer on the sides, shorter on the top, but I would style his bangs longer to give him something to play with at the front. It would give him a more youthful look, and would make his face squarer.
"I'd put in some lowlights of his natural light-brown coloring to energize it a bit."
"With Kerry, it's the exact opposite. His face is very long, and he needs a rounder cut to balance that. I'd take a little bit off the top, make his bangs a little shorter and the sides a little longer.
"Colorwise, his natural color's dark. I'd put dark lowlights into the gray to make him look younger."
| 
