There should be a law prohibiting politicians from using elementary schools for photo ops!

[Hardrada]

Here is Hillary C. back in Iowa again and, of course, posing with former candidate Vilsack at an elementary school. (Vilsacks did that a lot too). I used to think it was charming but now I think it is manipulative and cynical since the kids ALWAYS get left behind no matter what the rhetoric is. The politicians smile at the future cannon fodder like Hitler beaming at the Hitlerjugend.

[Firespirit]

1. No Hillary fan here... but...

this is not nearly as bad as something I saw once in a gubernatorial race.

In 2003, during the campaign for governor, my mother in Mississippi sent me a newspaper clipping in which a sixth-grade teacher--my former sixth-grade teacher, in fact--had conducted a "research project" in her social studies class in which she asked the students to research the two major party campaigns and analyze the level of "negative campaigning" that each one did.

This is a 75% white, suburbanite, upper middle class school in an 80% Republican county. One guess as to what the results were.

Well, she sold the results to the Haley Barbour campaign and gave permission for this smear to be put in several wide-circulation newspapers. These kids' homework assignment was sold to the Barbour campaign and used for campaign propaganda. Even if they were mini-Republicans themselves, that's just wrong and I suspect illegal, but it was never investigated.

However, I do take your point. The kids are always left behind, especially with the "no circle left blank" legislation. What is Hillary's stance on that anyway?

[Hardrada]

5. I suppose she is evaluating how much a better education

stance would help her.

[Firespirit]

10. It's for others to decide, no doubt. /nt

[PA Democrat]

2. My son's high school invited Senator Man-on-Dog Santorum to speak

last spring. A young woman from the Young Democrats Club started asking some tough questions on Iraq during the Q&A session, and had the microphone taken away from her. It was like one of the prescreened Bush campaign appearances. No dissent is permitted. Except it was happening on taxpayer-funded property, our public schools.

[Hardrada]

6. Another reason it was wonderful he got clobbered!

[BuyingThyme]

3. What will we tell the Tom Reynolds?

[Hardrada]

4. We need some more opinions on this.

It is a bothersome phenomenon.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Inexcusable exploitation of their captive audiences. Dead wrong.

If they're so concerned about communicating with the children, tell them to just go in, communicate, and leave the goddamned photo ops for another time.

You may have seen photos of _Bush and Gov. Rick Perry reading to Texas children from Lynne Cheney's history rewrite, America: a Patriotic Primer. That adds insult to injury, in spades.

Those kids have nowhere to go to escape this new frontier for politicians. It's absolutely inappropriate trying to influence young, unprepared, unformed little minds of children who have absolutely NO CLUE what is involved in poltics of any persuasion. Damned unworthy behavior for adults.

[Hardrada]

8. Thank you! I am starting to think of this as a kind of abuse

and I just want ALL politicians to stop it unless there is a format where the children talk and the candidates LISTEN!!

[Lisa]

9. we could call it "Leave Every Child Alone!"

It's one thing if the children get to grill the candidate with tough questions (e.g. in civics class) -- but using them as a captive backdrop, no matter what party the politician is from, sends the wrong message. (And the kids realize this, at a pretty young age too.)

Not exactly the way to encourage kids to get involved in politics. I wouldn't be surprised if children get the impression that it's the sort of thing a phony insincere egomaniac would be into. (I remember that there were a couple of examples of the latter in one of my grade school classes, and nobody wanted to be like them because we thought they were sneaky.)

[Hardrada]

11. Remember the kid that was yawning instead of being an

adoring backdrop for Shrub! I thought that was a superb reaction. (And it was certainly noticed).