First Daughter Endorsement

I try not too get to political here at Foma Central. I save all that stuff for my alter ego, Mo MoDo. But a lot of candidate's kids have been making the news lately. So I think it’s fair to come up with the most shallow and superficial possible way to rate the candidates: the entertainment value of their children. Say what you want about Dubya, but his daughters, The Drunken Duo, have been an endless stream of eyebrow raising antics. Between college drinking hijinks and Jen’s upcoming nuptials, the twins have been a lot of fun.

Oddly, all the current candidates have had girls. So what does our future hold for First Daughters? Let’s take a look:

Chelsea Clinton	Chelsea Clinton has grown from a rather awkward duckling into a graceful if rather mute swan. As a twenty-eight-year-old college grad, she is trying to help out with the family business which is convincing the American public that her parents deserve one more shot at balancing budgets while parading their personal peccadilloes in public. Oops, I promised not to get too political. Chelsea has gotten a lot of press for not answering questions about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. And can you blame her? It’s not right to make any kid imagine their parents’ sex lives in detail, no matter what their age. Give her a break. Still, Chelsea has grown up too responsible and respectable to be any fun. Unless she starts dating a member of an emo band and gets some serious ink done, her salad days are long past. Sorry Chelsea, we have to take a pass.
Malia Ann and Natasha Obama	We haven’t had any genuine kiddy kids in the White House since the Camelot days of JFK, Jr. hiding under his daddy’s desk. Barack has two absolutely adorable moppets, Malia Ann and Sasha. These kids are photo-ops just begging to happen. First day of school, Easter egg rolls, family Christmas cards. The possibilities are endless. I just feel bad putting kids this young in the spotlight. The mainstream press tends to be pretty respectful of underage political progeny, but whisper campaigns occur. Who knows what sort of mischief these precocious politico spawn can get into on the playground? We don’t need gossip columns full of tales of lost lunch money and gym class pranks. And do we really want a White House full of puberty driven middle school drama as they get a little older? Let's let these tykes get a few years under their belts before the spotlight gets turned on.
Meghan McCain	John McCain has a whole passel of offspring from two marriages to keep track of. He adopted two kids as part of the package deal with his first wife. Their kid together is now in her 40s. With his second wife, he has two sons serving their country, a novel concept for a politician nowadays. He also has an adopted Bangladeshi daughter that arguably cost him the nomination eight years ago. But it is the oldest daughter of the second parcel that we are concerned with today. Twenty-three-year-old Meghan McCain has been the subject of several press profiles, including most recently the Washington Post. She is vivacious, blonde and involved. It’s as if Reese Witherspoon were cast in the part. And best of all, she’s a blogger. She and gal pals Heather Brand and Shannon Bae ride the campaign bus and blog all the behind the scenes action. Meghan gets knocked for keeping the blog a little too upbeat and superficial. Ipod playlists are more likely to be featured than policy papers. But can you blame her? It’s a tough line to walk between being fun and being a laughingstock. And Meghan pulls off that balancing act perfectly.

So the official Foma* endorsement goes to McCain because I could really use four years of easy-on-the-eyes Meghan making weekly appearances in "The Reliable Source" and Wonkette. The only knock is that, like Chelsea, she’s just a little too long in the tooth to be really salacious, but we have to work with what we have.

Maybe we can get either Michael Lohan or Lynn Spears to run for president. Now that would be real fun.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: How old if ever does a First Child need to be before the press can take off the kid gloves?