Photo Op '08: Enter the Underdogs

The polls show this thing is wide open. Front runners? Inevitability? Out the window. On that note, we begin this week with the most unflattering photo of Hillary Clinton we've seen this campaign. It's by Jim Cole of the Associated Press and it was shot Saturday in Manchester, N.H.

We've seen pictures of Clinton looking bad before (remember her cold last month?) but this one is especially harsh and comes at the worst possible moment. Can a photo like this do a candidate harm? We'll let Matt Drudge answer that question:

USA Today, for its story about Clinton's likability, runs a slightly (but only slightly) more flattering shot of her waving from a helicopter yesterday in Iowa. It's by M. Spencer Green of the AP:

Photo coverage is giving us an impression of Clinton's campaign as desperate and worn down. Go ahead and try to find a recent photo of Barack Obama, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney looking this sick or this goofy. You won't find them. Maybe these candidates are not as spontaneous, maybe their campaigns are tightly managed to prevent this kind of shot, or maybe photo agencies and other media just haven't been moving weird pictures of these candidates.

- Weirdness, however, sticks to Mike Huckabee, who has finally shaken his status as an underdog. Now that he has arrived, nobody can figure out what to do with him in terms of visual coverage. For two different takes, compare Nigel Parry's glossy, polished Newsweek cover from last week to Michele Asselin's photojournalistic cover photo on this Sunday's New York Times Magazine:

- Newsweek put another candidate on the cover this week, showing Edwards looking very much in charge in a black-and-white portrait by Jing Quek. Interesting choice for Edwards to wear a nerdy digital watch so huge you can actually read the time in the photo: 12:46.

- Two primary election photo blogs came to our attention recently. Check out The Stumping Grounds, by a group of freelance photographers in Iowa, and Primary Circus, by the photographers at The Concord Monitor in New Hampshire. (On the Monitor blog, don't miss Lori Duff's shot of "Huck and Chuck." Like I said, weirdness.)

- Finally, the ultimate underdog, Alan Keyes, appeared in the Iowa Republican debate last week, so we've added him to our weekly survey of the candidates's photo performance (based on searches of the major photo wires through Yahoo! News). Charts are below.