You could see this one coming mile away.
The sexting scandals of disgraced ex-Congressman and New York City mayoral wannabe Anthony Weiner have inspired not one, but two prime-time storylines this week.
On Thursday’s “Scandal” (ABC), the firm of Pope & Associates agrees to work with a philandering senator who has taken explicit photos of himself.
And the latest “ripped from the headlines” case on Wednesday’s episode of “Law & Order: SVU” (NBC) has the team uncover misconduct by a mayoral front-runner (guest star Vincent Laresca) connected to an accused rapist.
“If you’re going to have a plotline with a politician on anything that’s pop culture, it better be something that the people care about, and people care about nookie,” explains Alison Dagnes, professor of political science at Shippensburg University and author of the book “Sex Scandals in American Politics.”
Weiner was famously forced to resign from Congress in 2011 after sending explicit photos of himself to women over Twitter, only to have a similar scandal again derail his attempted political comeback last summer (Weiner lost the Democratic mayoral primary in September with less than 5 percent of the vote).
The double-dip sexting offense and his parody-ripe alias “Carlos Danger” made the story ideal for the scripted TV treatment.
“We knew it was going to come because Anthony Weiner himself — forget even the name, which made it way too tempting — the kind of politician that he was was this very aggressive, in-your-face kind of guy that was ripe for the picking,” Dagnes says.
“Nobody even gave him the rope, he went out and he bought so much rope to hang himself with that you knew this was going to be a plot line somewhere.”
The DC-set “Scandal” has had its fair share of political sex scandal sub-plotlines (not to mention the central affair between Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope and Tony Goldwyn’s President “Fitz” Grant).
Season Two episodes featured a woman accused of having an affair with a Supreme Court nominee, a senator who had a tryst with a 21-year-old and a governor who murdered a man for allegedly raping his wife.
It’s hard to imagine a political scandal not having a sexual angle having the same lure in prime time.
“People’s eyes would start to glaze over because they just don’t get it,” Dagnes says. “With all of the shenanigans in Washington it’s very hot to hate on Congress, but most people don’t understand why they hate Congress.
“Sex and sex scandals are really easy to understand.”