The New Jon Huntsman Ad By His Daughters Reminds Us Only That Even Svetlana Stalin Endorsed Her Father on Occasion

Failing (flailing?) Republican presidential candidate Gov. Jon Huntsman (R-Utah) is not only saddled with a general lack of charisma and interesting policies but with his daughters. Much to the apparent dismay of staffers on the former governor's of-interest-only-to-Beltway-liberals-and-even-then-not-many run for the White House, the girls have "gone rogue" in appropriating Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack":

The campaign itself has been unnerved at times by the Huntsman daughters' jokes — for example, when they dinged Romney on Twitter for only visiting China once, adding, "Panda Express doesn't count."

The latest video apparently took at least some campaign staff by surprise. "They've kind of gone rogue," said one source with knowledge of the campaign.

"The video was produced without authorization," said a longtime Republican close to the campaign. "The girls were asked by a number of campaign officials to not release the video. The campaign was not informed of the release of the video. The video does not have a disclaimer and is not a campaign product."

"We are shamelessly promoting our dad like no other candidate's family ever has," said one of the daughters (who have names, but really, should we bother learning them before they show up on Top Chef, The Next Food Network Star, or Celebrity Rehab?).

As Squeaky Fromme could tell you, that sort of familial loyalty is as touching as it is overstated. With the possible exception of Newt Gingrich, we can safely assume that all the real and imagined GOP candidates have secured the votes of a clear majority of once-and-future blood relations.

Joe Stalin's tortured (literally and figuratively) daughter Svetlana died recently and, despite defecting from the Soviet Union to America (and then back again), even she at times had kind words to say about the man who called her "little sparrow" when taking a breaking from the murder of innocents (she once memorably noted that "You can't regret your fate, although I do regret my mother didn't marry a carpenter.")

All of which is a way of saying: I miss Roger Clinton (two shows nightly at the Pyongyang Marriott!) and the Bush girls 1.0.