NOW: A clean-shaven de Blasio is in the Democratic mayor hunt.
FIGHTING THE ODDS: Joe Lhota refuses to shave, despite the fact that the last bearded man to be elected NYC mayor was William Gaynor in 1910 — and he took an assassin’s bullet. (Getty Images)
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Anthony Weiner isn’t the only mayoral candidate to have bared his cheeks.
Bill de Blasio’s face has evolved from grizzly bear to naked mole rat — right around the time his name began to be mentioned as a serious mayoral candidate.
As a Brooklyn councilman, de Blasio sported a beard when elected in 2001, taming it to a rakish mustache and goatee by the time he was public advocate in 2010. Just a year later, he made his smooth transition.
“I didn’t leave my beard — my beard left me,” de Blasio told The Post, explaining that it was vanity, not politics, that led him to the razor’s edge.
“I started to notice flecks of gray . . . and I didn’t like the look,” de Blasio admitted, adding he immediately felt younger after the shave, which received a key endorsement from wife Chirlane McCray.
“She feels good about it — if she didn’t she’d certainly let me know.”
Experts said de Blasio’s close call makes sense, because conventional wisdom says facial hair doesn’t cut it in politics.
“In modern times, it makes the general public wince,” said political consultant George Arzt, who worked on de Blasio’s campaign for public advocate. Voters find facial hair “untrustworthy,” he added.
And it’s women voters, specifically, who might not be able to grin and beard the scruff.
Oddsmaker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder claimed he made $170,000 betting on clean-shaven underdog Harry Truman against mustachioed Thomas Dewey in the 1948 presidential election.
He had a hunch Dewey was doomed after his sister told him gals don’t like men with ’staches, Snyder told Penthouse in 1977. An unscientific poll of 500 women outside a supermarket followed, and Snyder was convinced enough to plunk $10,000 on the 17-to-1 long shot.
But things can get hairy for a candidate who alters his appearance too much.
“You can’t keep switching off from beard to mustache and goatee to nothing — then you don’t have a steady image of that person. That could work against him,” cautioned Arzt.
Right now the hairiest front-runner in the race is GOP hopeful Joe Lhota — the lone bearded candidate, who appears to have trimmed his trademark bristles since announcing his bid last January. He’s hoping to upend the popular myth.
“Having facial hair is not a determent,” Lhota declared to The Post, adding that he’s had the scruff for about 40 years, ever since his college days in Georgetown. “I have no desire to shave it. That’s not going to happen.”
If history serves as a guide, Lhota is a long shot — the last bearded mayor was William Gaynor, who served from 1910 to 1913. (He’s also the only mayor targeted by an assassin; he survived being shot in the throat in 1910, but died three years later.)
But Arzt said if anyone can pull it off, Lhota can, because the beard is part of his personality.
“This is his public image. He’d feel naked and uncomfortable without his beard, and that would change his whole messaging,” Arzt said. “Plus, Republicans can get away with it more than Democrats because they have this image of being self-made people.”
And compared to other candidates in the race, Lhota’s beard is a minor issue.
“The body part Anthony Weiner had problems with was not his face,” observed GOP strategist E. O’Brien Murray.