Schatz cites ‘loophole’ after challenge to shave head for fundraiser

It remains to be seen whether Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) will baldly go where no lawmaker has gone before and shave his head as part of a fundraising effort, following a nudge by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

In a Sunday post on Twitter, Booker threw out the possibility of Schatz and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) saying sayonara to their tresses in exchange for donations to Democrat Cheri Beasley’s Senate campaign in North Carolina.

“Wait!? Is it true? If we get 500 people to contribute to @CheriBeasleyNC then Sens. Shatz [sic] and Murphy will shave their heads today!?” Booker asked.

“This could be freaking awesome,” Booker wrote to his nearly 5 million followers. “I want more people on the Senate Bald caucus.”

Murphy appeared to cut down the idea of taking some shears to his locks — which were once described by “Full Frontal’s” Samantha Bee as “immaculate.”

While responding to Booker that it’s “likely not true” that he’d give his hair the chop, Murphy vowed to record personalized videos thanking Beasley’s 400th and 500th donors.

Schatz initially seemed onboard with the baldheaded fundraising stunt, replying “Sure!” to Booker with a bald man emoji.

But things quickly got hairy, with Schatz appearing to brush off his earlier approval of debuting a potentially smooth new look.

“I just realized Cory Booker misspelled my name,” Schatz tweeted on Sunday night. “Wow.”

“THIS IS THE LOOPHOLE I NEED,” Schatz wrote.

His office didn’t return ITK’s request for comment on the whole mane affair.

It’s not the first time that Washington has utilized follicular fundraising.

Back in 2012, before he became White House press secretary under former President Trump, then-Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer and then-Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse created some bipartisan buzz by shaving their heads together to raise money for a childhood cancer charity.

That same year, former President Obama’s senior campaign strategist, David Axelrod, vowed to shave his signature mustache to raise money for epilepsy research. At a benefit marking Axelrod’s mustache-free look, then-Vice President Biden joked to ITK that he might join the hair-free bandwagon.

“I tell you what, man, I’d shave my head just for the fun of it — the way I’m going,” Biden said with a laugh at the time.

A poll released last week showed Beasley leading her Republican opponent, Ted Budd, by 1 percentage point.

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