"Baby kissing is a practice in which politicians and candidates campaigning for office kiss babies in order to garner public support."

So begins the Wikipedia article "Baby kissing," which I'm reading this morning after getting this viral tweet:

Little girl slaps Biden’s creepy ghoul hand away. pic.twitter.com/oBfceo5iOM

— Suburban Black Man 🇺🇸 (@goodblackdude) November 21, 2021

Is Biden a "creepy ghoul" there? I see a responsive tweet that says "I blame the mother for putting her child in this situation. Why do these people always b[r]ing their children around this creep?" 

But mothers have been holding their babies up to politicians, expecting not just light petting, but outright kissing for as long as I can remember. It's been a synonym for campaigning. That's why there's a Wikipedia article "Baby kissing." 

Look how lovely our most charismatic President looked doing it (and he's even crotch-grabbing!):

Of course, some babies don't like it, and they don't know or care that the stranger handling them is the President. Some Presidents manage to make the baby's rejection work as a charming photo op:

From the Wikipedia article:

The practice appears to have originated in the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy, along with other techniques such as "banners, badges, parades, barbecues, [and] free drinks", which were used to get out the vote.... In 1886, the magazine Babyhood reported that most presidents of the United States had accepted "kissing babies as an official duty."  

In the 1890s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton criticized the practice on the basis of hygiene and children's rights, and praised President Benjamin Harrison for refraining from it.

Well, there you go. She's probably right. Leave babies alone. Respect their autonomy.  

The journalist Elinor Burkett argues that the practice "is designed to suggest that the candidate is stable and trustworthy." The practice may be especially strongly associated with efforts to win women's votes and support: during the 1920 United States presidential election, The Nation reported that James M. Cox's ability "to kiss other people’s babies as if he enjoyed it" rendered him "well-nigh invulnerable with women voters"; while David Shears, a British observer of American politics writing in 1961, concluded: "I suppose baby-kissing is meant to appeal to the women's vote. But every woman knows it's pretty hard to kiss a baby unless you’re holding it, and it's quite risky enough holding your own baby, let alone somebody else's."

So what do you think? Is this how you win the women's votes or are women going to be rejecting this sort of appeal? The politicians won't do it if the women don't like it. Either it's "garnering" support or it's not.

I looked into the NYT archive to see some old discussion of the political practice of baby-kissing. I thought I'd scored when I found the headline "Opposed to Baby Kissing" from 1939. But, clicking through, I saw that it was denouncing baby-kissing by everyone! "Modern" pediatricians were telling relatives not to kiss the baby. 

Let's try this from 1961: "Is Baby Kissing Really Necessary?; A British correspondent, who has his doubts, takes a look at American campaigning and finds the whole pizza-blintz-beauty-contest business definitely bizarre. Is Baby Kissing Necessary?" That guy seems to have enjoyed American "folksiness" and "fun." 

Requisite Bob Dylan lyric:

Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote 

He’s a-runnin’ for office on the ballot note 

He’s out there preachin’ in front of the steeple 

Tellin’ me he loves all kinds-a people 

He’s eatin’ bagels 

He’s eatin’ pizza

He’s eatin’ chitlins 

He’s eatin’ bullshit!