Science: Mitt Romney Very Good Looking, Paul Ryan Not as Much

Also very handsome: John Thune, Russ Feingold and Sarah Palin, report says.

Updated: September 2, 2012 | 4:01 p.m.
September 2, 2012 | 3:04 p.m.

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, gestures to the audience while campaigning Sunday, Aug. 12, 2012, in High Point, N.C. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

A team of Harvard professors has come up with some very interesting findings: Mitt Romney is quite handsome. His running mate, however, might be less so.

Ryan Enos, a professor of government at Harvard, and a team of researchers that rated former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a 95 out of 100 in “facial competence” in 2008, are back again, according to Washington Monthly magazine. This time, the researchers report that, objectively, the GOP nominee is even better looking than Palin: his grade was 99.

The researchers showed undergraduate students pictures of Romney, among others, for one second. The research was compiled in 2007 – when Romney was a relative unknown – a fact that researchers claim helps remove political opinions from the equation.

The relatively shocking news from the findings: running mate Paul Ryan scored a mere 67 in a pool of House candidates in 2004. The authors noted that abs were not taken into consideration in their findings.

The researchers found that only a handful of politicos topped Romney: former Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and current Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., were in that pool.

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