Candidates’ kids in photo ops

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The McCain campaign — and most everyone else — has warned reporters not to focus on the pregnancy of the daughter of vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin. A candidate’s children are “off limits,” the candidates themselves usually say. It’s not an unreasonable point.

So why would you make the young Palin, and her soon-to-be-husband, part of the photo op with the arriving Republican presidential-nominee-to-be at the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport today?

It’s not just Republicans, of course. Candidates have regularly used their kids to portray an image.

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When are the children of candidates “off limits”?