America’s Sweetheart, James Holmes, donning excellent facial fur.

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Hirsute leaders with high office aspirations rejoice.

The paperwork has been filed with the FEC on Wednesday to establish The Bearded Entrepreneurs for the Advancement of a Responsible Democracy, a bi-partisan political action committee whose purpose is implicit in the name.

“It’s been 125 years since our last bearded President, Benjamin Harrison, was elected,” BEARD PAC Communications Director Andy Shapero said in a press release. “We’re hoping that with our support, bearded individuals will shrug off over a century of political irrelevance and start running for office again.”

So why have beards gone out of style for politicians over the last century? Slate speculates that besides solidarity with soldiers, who were forbidden to wear beards that interfered with gas masks in WWI, it was later to avoid association with “communists and hippies.”

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