What is there about pulling the plug on political ambitions that makes big-time politicians start sprouting facial hair?

Gov. Bill Richardson unveiled his slightly-more-than-5-o'clock shadow at a news conference in Santa Fe Monday, prompting blogger Joe Monahan to ask this morning if Bill is "blue" over abandoning his presidential run.

"You know, there are always periods of decompression in my life -- this is one of them -- that I grow a beard," Richardson told a crowd at the Capitol Monday, according to The Associated Press.

Our "decompressed" governor still has a legislative session to get through and a while left in his second term as the state's chief executive -- unless, of course, he is summoned to Washington to fill some top government post.

You may also recall that Sen. Pete Domenici caused no less a personage than President George W. Bush to do a double-take when Domenici showed up for the energy bill signing wearing a beard, the Albuquerque Journal's Michael Coleman reported last December.

And, of course, there was Al Gore's beard following his loss to Bush in the 2000 presidential election, that prompted this reflection on beards in politics by Slate magazine's Michael Brus back in 2001.

Brus suggests that politicians seeking office don't wear beards because they're "such a turnoff."

Come to think of it, we started growing our own beard when we finally, irrevocably abandoned our hope of one day becoming president of the United States. Funny how that works.