In a battle whose equal has rarely been seen outside the walls of the Kut ‘n’ Kurl of Topeka, the Republican candidate Carly Fiorina and Sen. Barbara Boxer are in a war of words over…their hair. It started a month ago when Fiorina was caught on a hot mic, quoting a friend who bashed Boxer’s ‘do:

“God, what is that hair?” a laughing Fiorina said, while quoting a friend who had recently seen Boxer on television. “So yesterday.”

Boxer responded a month ago by saying she’d rather talk about jobs than hair, and Fiorina at first laughed off the incident, saying she was merely quoting a friend, then told Fox News Sunday she regretted inadvertently getting the campaign onto a hair discussion.

A Field Poll found Boxer in a statistical dead heat with Fiorina yesterday but the AP stuck to the issues and wrote about the hair comment again this week. Boxer changed course with this comeback:

“I was thinking, what if every single person whoever had a bad hair day, male or female, voted for me? I’d win my a landslide,” Boxer quipped while riding in a van on her way to a press conference at Sacramento International Airport. “So I decided I’m going after the bad hair vote.”

I can’t be positive, but the way it’s written seems to suggest the AP initiated talk of the hair story. Why? Was it really necessary to ask Boxer, a month after the fact, if she handled Coif-gate properly? To my knowledge, this important issue had not resurfaced. I think we can all safely say it is now resolved, and we can move onto Fiorina’s position on Obamacare or Boxer’s low approval numbers.

I must say I enjoyed Boxer’s revised comeback more than the first. Is it just me, or is it reminiscent of a Jerk Store moment?