Kathryn, you’re almost certainly right that John Hoeven will figure out a way to survive politically in North Dakota depite the presence of a moustache. I mean, it’s so cold up there, it’s practically Canadian.
But the moustache myth is a durable one. Way down south in tropical Kansas, where facial-hair is less a survival strategy than just a way to decorate the front of a guy’s head, the surprising lopsided victory in 2002 of then-insurance commissioner Kathleen Sebelius, an obscure liberal Democrat, over Kansas House Speaker Tim Shallenberger, a conservative Republican, was blamed by “moderate” Republicans on Shallenberger’s refusal to razor his ’stache, believe it or not. A Burma-Shave translation (kids, ask a geezer):
Tim fought Kathy
But made a slip
When he forgot
To shave his lip.
Of course, the widespread defection of those “moderate” RINOs, who to this day would rather vote for a liberal Democrat than see a Kansas conservative Republican win statewide office, may also have had something to do with it.