I believe I was in sixth grade when that album came out.
First of all, it used a whole lot of synthesizers, which were pretty new technology at the time, and I felt like I was living in the future when I heard it.
As to the album cover, it somehow didn't register with my that it was a baby smoking.
Rather, it made me think of teenagers smoking in the high school bathroom.
Motley Crue's Smokin in the Boys Room came out a year later, so I don't think that influenced my mental image.
George Bush the first called Dan "potatoe" Quayle the Jose Canseco of politics.
JD is making him look like it in comparison.