US Senate candidate Joe DioGuardi's official YouTube channel offers this video, apparently filmed with a Flip camera pointed at a TV, of DioGuardi's appearance on Fox & Friends this morning. He fathered someone you may have heard of!

Joe DioGuardi used to be a Congressman, but his actual qualification for the job of "US Senator" is that he's the father of a famous person. This famous person is Kara DioGuardi. Kara, one of the most obviously insecure people on television, is a judge on the popular television show American Idol, where she is generally considered an unpleasant usurper whose need for attention constantly distracts from the performances of the actual contestants.

Over the next few months, Joe will profess to being so sick of people asking so much about Kara, as he runs for office, but he will also happily appear on Fox News any time he is invited on, and he will be invited on many more times because as a Republican whose daughter is on a Fox show he is basically Rupert Murdoch's synergistic wet dream.

As we all remember, Scott Brown won his miraculous victory in Massachusetts because his daughter used to be on this American Idol program, except as a singer instead of a failed performer and spotlight vampire.

This American Idol thing also gives Joe quite a leg up on the other Republican candidates for the nomination.

There is David Malpass, a long-forgotten aide from the Reagan and HW Bush administrations. There is some guy named "Bruce Blakeman." And there is Dan Senor, the career GOP middle east policy wonk who helped ghostwrote Mitt Romney's latest terrible book (and who crafted some wonderful pro-Bush "phrases" for interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to deliver to Congress right before the 2004 election).

Dan is also married to a famous person—Campbell Brown—which ought to help him be competitive with unstoppable juggernaut Joe "Mr. Kara's Father" DioGuardi.