Parody: Balancing Home, Hair, and High Aspirations
If the media wrote about male candidates the same they wrote about female candidates, it might look a little something like this:
Convention wisdom is that State Representative James Smith will need to clean up his act if he has any hope of being taken seriously as a U.S. Senatorial candidate.
His interview with MSNBC on Monday started six minutes late, presumably due to last minute chores or picking up his kids from school. This wouldn’t be the first time his personal life has intruded on his campaign. In his 2002 campaign for City Council, his two children were rarely seen in public, causing many to wonder who was taking care of them? Had their mother agreed to set aside her career for his? It will be difficult, to say the least, for Smith to convince the public that he’s ready for office if he can’t even balance work and fatherhood.
Luckily for Smith, MSNBC was able to look past his paternal priorities and went through with the interview as planned. However, as the tape rolled, it looked as if Smith may not have been completely focused on the questions asked. It was almost as if his mind was somewhere else—his thoughts adrift and wandering. Probably on his kids again.
During the moments in which he was able to give the interviewer his full attention, Smith, immaculately clad in a form-flattering button-down, seemed annoyed with the questions concerning his hair. Granted, the focus on the Representative’s coif has been a fixture of his 10 years in office, but he should clearly be expecting it by now.
A word of advice to the aspiring Senator: Jimmy, you may be a great dad, possess a keen fashion sense, and have a degree from Harvard and more than 15 years of public service, but the ‘do just isn’t “cutting” it.
Published by Kate McCarthy on 07/20/2012