Political Stage Parents

by Chris Bodenner

Michelle Cottle sees a new wrinkle in the ever-blurring line between politics and celebrity:

Accompanying this trend, I suspect, will be the fading of the perceived downsides of political kid-dom. Once upon a time, pretty much all pols agonized about the lack of privacy their families would suffer because of their profession. Today, we have Scott Brown touting his daughters’ extreme dateability during his victory speech and calling for Ayla to once more shake her groove thing for Simon Cowell. And why not? If our reality TV/YouTube culture has taught us anything, it is not to fear exposure. ...

Projecting out a few years, how long before politicians have to stop citing their kids as the reason they won’t pursue higher officeand we instead see kids lobbying their parents to run as a way to boost the kids’ public image? After all, without all that grotesque personal invasion that Sarah Palin whined about in ’08, Bristol would be just another [teen-mom] statistic ...

Ayla Brown clearly has talent, and I hope she has a great career, but I can't watch her music video without thinking of this classic from David Brent: