How is politician babby hold?
January 12, 2008 11:11 PM   Subscribe

Darren Karnick hands his infant to the presidential candidates and photographs the results. The Daily Telegraph says the baby primary is a clear win for Obama. The Boston Globe has more pictures of the candidates with kids. And should you be embarking on a political career, don't forget to bone up on the Commandments for Policians Who Art Babykissers, including such sound advice as "thou shouldst not drop babies thou art kissing, for surely, dropped babies will gain thee no votes."
posted by Kattullus (54 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
Haha. She's got the right idea about Giuliani.
posted by delmoi at 11:17 PM on January 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


What, no Ron Paul?
posted by champthom at 11:24 PM on January 12, 2008


This would be much more powerful if he threw his infant at them, yelling "Catch!" at the same time.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 11:28 PM on January 12, 2008 [6 favorites]


No fred thompson?
posted by null terminated at 11:31 PM on January 12, 2008


Ron Paul doesn't kiss babies because that's not in the Constitution. Let the states kiss their own babies.
posted by mullacc at 11:31 PM on January 12, 2008 [70 favorites]


"Thou shouldst not kiss babies whose swaddling clothes art overly damp or otherwise fulsome inasmuch as thou mayest foul they shaking hand or marketh they clothing."

Looks like Hillary missed that one: "During a pleasant exchange with Hillary across the Secret Service barricades, I notice that the baby's tush is slightly damp. The fact that Hillary doesn't mention it suggests that she's either diplomatic or has no control over her senses. I hope she uses Purell."
posted by librarylis at 1:04 AM on January 13, 2008


mullacc: That is my favorite snark of the year so far. Well done.

I wonder what would happen if a politician dropped and seriously injured a baby.
posted by phrontist at 1:29 AM on January 13, 2008


He would immediately gain the pro-choice vote KAPOW BANG BONG (that is my rimshot noises).
I like this post a bunch.
posted by damehex at 1:47 AM on January 13, 2008


Ron Paul doesn't kiss babies because that's not in the Constitution. Let the states kiss their own babies.

I refute this calumny! Ron Paul used to kiss babies, but they kept printing new ones, devaluing those babies kissed by Ron Paul. Down with fiat babies!
posted by enn at 1:56 AM on January 13, 2008 [12 favorites]


Ron Paul never kissed a baby in his life. All those pictures of Ron Paul kissing a baby are actually pictures of a Ron Paul impersonator that Ron Paul employed over the course of thirty years without paying any attention to the impersonator's actions. Ron Paul has always found baby-kissing repulsive and his current campaign's literature proves that.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:47 AM on January 13, 2008 [11 favorites]


Ron Paul likes babies and indeed has plenty of baby friends. Do your research!
posted by Skeptic at 2:54 AM on January 13, 2008 [6 favorites]


LIBERAL BABY CONSPIRACY
posted by poppo at 3:12 AM on January 13, 2008


I loved these photos. Kucinich was my favorite, but all the candidates seemed unusually human and vulnerable.
posted by teleskiving at 3:29 AM on January 13, 2008


I thought Chuck Norris displayed remarkably self-control in not squeezing the baby into a soft paste.
posted by Deathalicious at 3:43 AM on January 13, 2008 [10 favorites]


I really like Obama's first photo. He looks completely transfixed at the *baby*. And the baby looks... happy.

Kucinich is a close second, though. Romney is just mugging for the camera... and can't tell the difference. (I guess when you have so many children, you stop caring about their gender.)

Hillary seems to be spacing out. Huckabee nails it in his way. McCain's glib "there goes another vote" joke made me chuckle.
posted by disillusioned at 4:12 AM on January 13, 2008


Baby Dahlia's facial expression with the Romneys is priceless, mind you:

"Bleeeagh!"
posted by Skeptic at 4:37 AM on January 13, 2008


What, no Ron Paul?

What, no Lyndon Larouche?
posted by thrakintosh at 5:27 AM on January 13, 2008


How lovely is this politician holding a baby - filter ?
posted by elpapacito at 5:57 AM on January 13, 2008


Kucinich also did quite well I think. He seems pretty engaged with the baby, not the camera.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:24 AM on January 13, 2008


Why the hell does a story headlined "Barack Obama: best with babies" not have a picture of Barack with a baby?
posted by chips ahoy at 6:37 AM on January 13, 2008 [3 favorites]


great post, great title. I was already leaning towards Obama but this clinched it.
posted by desjardins at 6:40 AM on January 13, 2008


Great post. I'm actually standing for political office myself in 2008, and I believe that kissing the odd innocent youngster is a time-honoured ritual in every honest campaign. Yet, you get caught on video fondling an 8 year-old girl and suddenly the campaign contributions dry up quicker than the hopless tears of a Sudanese refugee under the pitiless African sun. That's typical liberal flip-flopping for you.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 6:43 AM on January 13, 2008 [6 favorites]


Baby Dahlia's facial expression with the Romneys is priceless, mind you:

"Bleeeagh!"


That's because she knows they were sizing her up to be a sister-wife in 12 or 13 years.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:45 AM on January 13, 2008 [9 favorites]


This is really interesting, because if you go through all the links, you really see the power of photography and "the right moment". Sure, in the first link, Huckabee and Obama look the best with the babies, while Giuliani looks awful. But if you go to the Boston Globe link you'll see a great picture of Giuliani with a kid, while Obama and Huckabee look as though they don't like or can't deal with kids (photo 10 and 12).

Romney, however, manages to look completely plastic all the time.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:53 AM on January 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Of course I noticed the mary jane socks before the author of the piece even linked to them. If I were having a girl, I'd have a gross of these by now.
posted by pinky at 7:03 AM on January 13, 2008


I'm glad the intelligentsia is so hip to tongue-in-cheek political irony. Just remember to act all surprised by voter apathy and low turn outs.
posted by limon at 7:18 AM on January 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Imagein: I hand my young kid to a guy named Abe Lincoln
posted by Postroad at 7:21 AM on January 13, 2008


Quote:
The elections are run by the same guys who sell toothpaste. They show you an image of a sports hero, or a sexy model, or a car going up a sheer cliff or something, which has nothing to do with the commodity, but it's intended to delude you into picking this one rather than another one. Same when they run elections. But they're assigned that task in order to marginalize the public, and furthermore, people are pretty well aware of it.

For many years, election campaigns here have been run by the public relations industry and each time it's with increasing sophistication. Quite naturally, the industry uses the same technique to sell candidates that it uses to sell toothpaste or lifestyle drugs. The point is to undermine markets by projecting imagery to delude and suppressing information­and similarly, to undermine democracy by the same method.

In the year 2000, there was a huge fuss afterwards about the stolen election, with the Florida chads and the Supreme Court. But ask yourself who was exorcised about it? It was all among a small group of intellectuals. They were the ones who were upset about it. There was never any public resonance for this. In the current election it's being reiterated. There's a big fuss among intellectuals about the vote in Ohio, how the voting machines didn't work, and other things. But the interesting thing is that nobody cares.

Why don't people care if the election is stolen? The reason is that they don't take the election seriously in the first place. They reacted about the way that people react to television ads. It's a mode of delusion. If the Democrats want to succeed in that game, they're just going to have to figure out better ways of delusion.

There is an alternative, and that is to try to run a program that's committed to developing a democratic society in which people's opinions matter.
posted by limon at 7:21 AM on January 13, 2008 [8 favorites]


Just remember to act all surprised by voter apathy and low turn outs.

Hey, who would you trust to hold your baby: Simon "Angry" Cowell, Randy "Dawg" Jackson, or Paula "Drinky-Poo" Abdul? This is important stuff.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:24 AM on January 13, 2008


I imagine years of therapy for that poor kid.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:32 AM on January 13, 2008


What, no Lyndon Larouche?

At his age, he brings his own diapers on the campaign trail.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:42 AM on January 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Thou shouldst not publicly kiss babies who art near or recently past the age of puberty.

Just posting this rule in advance of the next wave of Republican sex scandals.
posted by Ber at 7:45 AM on January 13, 2008


My question, now that I'm reading my post undrunk,* is how the hell is Romney holding baby Dahlia? It looks like he's squeezing her neck trying to make her head pop off.


*Another milestone passed, the drunk fpp.
posted by Kattullus at 8:07 AM on January 13, 2008


We're all in agreement that Obama is a Vulcan, right?

(Kattullus: I don't think you get to count this as your drunk FPP. It makes sense, you didn't respond to every comment, and it and hasn't been deleted.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:04 AM on January 13, 2008


Imagine Dahlia Karnick, wheeling her aging father around for all the 2048 candidates to hold as part of the Eldery Primary project.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:45 AM on January 13, 2008 [4 favorites]


Isn't it Garnick, rather than Karnick?
posted by nthdegx at 9:46 AM on January 13, 2008


We're all in agreement that Obama is a Vulcan, right?

I think he's obviously one of the less photogenic candidates and that he has managed to make up for being a bit goofy-looking by being able to manifest a completely Rock-of-Gibraltar-like composure at all times. I don't know what he'd decide to do the day after a nuclear terrorist attack but I have difficulty imagining him displaying any uncertainty or fear, or going off half-cocked and lobbing nukes in response.

But yeah, that photo does almost convey, "Babies are highly illogical."
posted by XMLicious at 10:13 AM on January 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


I can imagine her being shown the photos one day far in the future "Here's a photo of you with the President... and a bunch of losers nobody really remembers."
posted by bobo123 at 10:21 AM on January 13, 2008


this is the picture of Obama with Dahlia. It's much nicer then the one in the Boston globe.
posted by delmoi at 10:23 AM on January 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Obama is just so good at this (see also)! I hope when he's President they'll convert the Oval Office into a daycare center. Wasn't there a movie about that?
posted by nobody at 10:30 AM on January 13, 2008


I don't care who you're voting for, this is fucking adorable.
posted by EarBucket at 2:03 PM on January 13, 2008 [3 favorites]


what I really want to see is all the candidates holding baby Stewie in their arms, not some random ugly baby with creepy parents who use her as a prop.

I bet Stewie would kick everybody's ass but McCain.
posted by matteo at 2:23 PM on January 13, 2008


(oh, and by the way, see the photo of the baby with Giuliani? he's so creepy he made her poop herself)
posted by matteo at 2:25 PM on January 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


Look at how Kucinich taunts the baby with the pacifier he always carries in his pocket!
posted by XMLicious at 3:02 PM on January 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Mitt's already thinking about how he can leverage the baby's endorsement.
posted by jonp72 at 4:35 PM on January 13, 2008


for surely, dropped babies will gain thee no votes

Indeed. In Canada you can lose an election by dropping a football.
posted by orange swan at 8:36 PM on January 13, 2008


orange swan: In Canada you can lose an election by dropping a football

Can you tell me more? I couldn't figure out the right google terms to find this story.
posted by Kattullus at 9:21 PM on January 13, 2008


Kattullus: I think this is what orange swan is referring to:

[From this article about Canadian politicians being photographed looking foolish or awkward]

...the best prime minister Canada never had. On May 30, 1974, the angular and, at least in this famous photo, awkward Robert Stanfield fumbled a football. Canadian Press photographer Doug Ball's camera caught what the Tory leader did not and the odious comparison with the svelte, athletic and camera-savvy Pierre Trudeau pushed Stanfield and a hapless party over the electoral brink.

Here's the original photo. Eek, cringeworthy--he does look awkward.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:39 PM on January 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


Thanks hurdy gurdy girl. That's an amazing picture! I say it often and I'll say it again, Canadian politics are simply more entertaining than pretty much any other country's politics.
posted by Kattullus at 9:44 PM on January 13, 2008


You're welcome, Kattullus. I really feel sorry for poor old Stanfield in that picture--there's just something about the expression on his face. Apparently he was a really decent guy.

Canadian politics are simply more entertaining than pretty much any other country's politics.

For your enjoyment: a CBC article with some choice quotes from former Alberta premier Ralph Klein. Also, mug shots of our current BC premier, Gordon Campbell, when he was arrested for drinking and driving in Hawaii with his blood alcohol level at twice the legal limit.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:05 PM on January 13, 2008


What really would have clinched Obama's foothold in the "best with babies" runnings is, after the second time this nutter dragged his around to toss her at strangers, Obama said "Aww, hey you know, I have two children myself, and as a candidate I am dedicated to protecting America's children. Which is why I will now report you to the fucking authorities"

I mean seriously?
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:35 AM on January 14, 2008


what I really want to see is all the candidates holding baby Stewie in their arms, not some random ugly baby with creepy parents who use her as a prop.

Seriously. I find this so attention-whorish. Look at my baby!
posted by agregoli at 7:25 AM on January 14, 2008


Canadian Press photographer Doug Ball's camera caught what the Tory leader did not and the odious comparison with the svelte, athletic and camera-savvy Pierre Trudeau pushed Stanfield and a hapless party over the electoral brink.

The stupid thing was, I've read that during that impromptu game of touch football, Stanfield caught the damn football almost every time. But it was the picture of him dropping it that got picked up, and it turned the tide in Trudeau's favour, despite the fact that "being able to catch a football" is right up there with "being someone you'd like to have a beer with" for being a really asinine reason to vote for someone who is going to lead a nation.

Sometimes I wish voters had to sit through a mandatory seminar, followed by an exam which they had to pass, before they were allowed to vote. Democracy will only really work when we've earned it.
posted by orange swan at 11:01 AM on January 14, 2008


orange swan wrote: Sometimes I wish voters had to sit through a mandatory seminar, followed by an exam which they had to pass, before they were allowed to vote. Democracy will only really work when we've earned it.

Oh boy, do I ever agree with that. I enjoyed this post and thought many of the pictures were cute, but to think there are some people who are actually heavily influenced by a photo of a candidate holding a baby (or football) awkwardly...that's scary.

I'm no fan of my province's current government, but one thing they did right (whatever the motives were behind it) was to hold a Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform. Random people from each community were selected from all over the province to attend a weekly course on different voter systems around the world, so that at the end of a set period of time (a year, I think) they would have enough information to be able to suggest we either keep our current system ("first past the post" or plurality voting system) or switch to a new one (they ended up recommending a form of the single transferable vote system). This was then put to a referendum for the people of BC to vote for or against change. Unfortunately, the government didn't fund the educational campaign for the rest of the citizenry and didn't promote the results of the Citizen's Assembly, so there was a lot of general ignorance on the topic and apathy from voters. However, from the people I know who attended the CA, it was an incredibly valuable and educational experience.

The CA was about one specific aspect of our political system, electoral systems, and was only open to a small segment of the population. I only wish everyone could have that opportunity to learn about political systems in general.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:26 PM on January 14, 2008


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