Tony Dokoupil, who once asked "is journalism ready for a black president" in the Columbia Journalism Review -- he also excerpted it in a blog entry at Huffington Post -- gave Newsweek readers a look at what the presidential candidates' neckties say about the men who wear them.
You may scoff now, but Dokoupil sure finds it a knotty problem (emphases mine):
So what does the knot say about today's presidential candidates? In McCain's case, it screams old-guard Washington establishment, like a bolo screams cowboy. According to his top adviser, Mark Salter, the Arizona senator wears his tie with either a Windsor or the related half-Windsor knot--a configuration long favored by Beltway elites and, at least judging by the photos, nearly every U.S. president in the 20th century.... McCain's Windsor might seem like an odd choice for a self-proclaimed maverick, but it reflects the senator's public struggle to remain true to himself despite the distorting pressure of the presidential campaign. [...]
Obama, on the other hand, still hounded by charges of elitism, takes a less formal, more middle-class tack. Based on an unscientific sampling of recent photos--including the Men's Vogue cover--he most often wears his necktie with a four-in-hand knot, an awkward and asymmetrical cinch invented by 19th-century carriage drivers (who held four reigns in hand) and popularized by Dilbert-types looking for a no-hassle way to spruce up for work. "It's a knot for someone who has 30 seconds for his tie in the morning," says Blackman, "a knot for the masses." The Obama campaign didn't respond to NEWSWEEK's inquiry about his ties (the nerve!), and the use of varying fabrics--which hold folds differently--make it tough to be certain about the senator's knot. But this much is at least clear: the Obama knot marks a definite break from the geometric Windsors of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Now that's sartorial change we can believe in.
