Attractiveness is definitely a quality which is driven home for women in politics.

And men. It is widely acknowledged that Nixon lost the 1960 election to Kennedy due to the first televised debates, where Kennedy appeared tan and young while Nixon appeared sweaty and old.

let's face it - if a woman in a public position does not look decently attractive, she will get slandered more than a man of similar attractiveness.

I'm not going to face that - you haven't provided any evidence whatsoever. "A man of similar attractiveness" is a null concept - men and women are attractive for different reasons to different genders.

This man:

ran against this woman:

...without any "slander" other than her sexual orientation.

Inaugural balls are - wait for it - balls. That's like saying people talked about clothing at the Oscars. Of course they did. They always do. And, for the record, "it feels like" is not a valid argument. "It can be shown that" is an acceptable substitute.

I'll give you this: attractiveness definitely matters in leadership. It is a component of charisma. However, there is plenty of research on this subject and the article cited didn't bother investigating any of it.

I'm not a fan of truthiness. Just because you want something to be true does not mean you can assert it as truth. Does attractiveness matter more for women CEOs? I dunno - let's run some numbers and find out. Then we're contributing to the discussion, rather than muddying the waters.