They’ve become active Twitter users: Hunstman’s three eldest daughters, all babies of the eighties, have begun tweeting under the account @Jon2012girls. But rather than just tweeting their dad’s poll numbers along with an occasional Brad Paisley shout-out (yeah, we’re looking at you, Tagg Romney), Mary Anne, Abby, and Liddy seem to be trying to have a little fun with the account — or at least, make it look like they are. They tweeted a picture of Liddy planking in a hotel room in Orlando, of their little sister riding a scooter around the campaign headquarters, and of them posing with their equally photogenic mother.
It’s sort of reality-TV-lite (very lite), in the style pioneered by Meghan McCain, who tweeted and blogged from the 2008 campaign trail in an effort to offset the old, white, male image of the Republican party (and her dad). McCain, though, was always far more of a provocateur than the Hunstman girls appear ready to be. And while that probably helped land McCain a Daily Beast columnist gig, it also got her in some trouble. Perhaps that’s also the difference between 2008 and 2011: Using Twitter was vaguely novel then, especially for a candidate’s kid for whom it afforded an opportunity to go off-script. Now everyone uses it to promote the script: Huntsman’s daughter’s aren’t going against the grain of their dad’s campaign strategy by tweeting pictures of themselves planking; they’re reinforcing his own, consultant-approved, too-cool-for-the-stuffy GOP vibe.
Presidential Candidates’ Kids Take to Twitter [Roll Call]
