Kissing Babies Political Rally Kissing Babies Political Rally the Campaign

When you're in charge of the nearly infamous dictatorship of the 20th century, it'southward of import to fix bated plenty of fourth dimension for PR.

Mayor Dewey: Another reason y'all should re-elect me, I honey babies. Will you look at that, a baby! Gonna buss it!
Steven: Hmm, I like his policies on babies.
Cadet Dewey: Human, he never kisses me like that.

When someone — usually a male someone — decides to run for public role, one of the things he is expected to exercise during the campaign is buss the babies of female person potential voters. Somehow this will prove that he's not evil and can be trusted to run the [country/state/county/city/dog pound] properly; presumably if he was evil, he'd be unable to resist the urge to take a bite out of it, or the baby would start crying loudly.

Subversions in which the infant is shaken, autographed, or otherwise mishandled by a confused candidate are common.

Exploited Trope of Friend to All Children. See as well Photo Op with the Domestic dog.

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Examples:

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    Comic Books

• A The Bash Street Kids strip has the teacher tell the class that they will be electing a caput boy past autonomous vote. Plug references the trope proverb that politicians go votes by kissing babies, so he goes to osculation some at a nursery. But because Plug's ugly, the babies scream and he gets thrown out without a osculation.
• On the encompass of My Little Pony Friends Forever Consequence 15, Mayor Mare is depicted kissing the forehead of ane of the Cake twins.
• Blake and Mortimer: Weaponized in "The Voronov Conspiracy", where a swell many Soviet and Western politicians all of a sudden start dying. It turns out the common factor was the politician kissing a young child who'd been unknowingly inoculated with a virus, with HM the Queen as the only exception. The girl assigned to the Queen had sickle-cell anemia, which neutralized the virus.

    Comic Strips

• Pearls Before Swine made a parody of this. Rat was trying to win the election, but he couldn't come to a baseball game upshot, so he sent Pig in his place to kiss a infant and throw a baseball out to the field. This price Rat the election, because Pig kissed the baseball game, and threw a baby out to the field!
• Bizarro (by Piraro) comic for Apr 24th, 2012. ◊ A Funny Brute true cat politico is shown licking a kitten held by a female person supporter.

    Fan Works

• The Bolt Chronicles: Played with in "The Baseball game." Bolt isn't sure what he should do in his honorary Mascot part. He decides to emulate the behavior of local politicians in the recent ballot by doling out sloppy-lick kisses to babies and old ladies, giving paw shakes to the men and boys, and similar actions. Several people say he has more charisma than the two gubernatorial candidates and make comments to that effect.
• Those Who Represent Nothing Autumn for Anything: Light has got this photograph op covered.

    Film — Animation

• In An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, True cat R. Waul kisses Yasha to convince the mice that he's harmless.
• In Metroman's first appearance in Megamind. He juggles some babies, so kisses i of them in front of a huge crowd (who already loves him).
• In the opening of The Emperor'south New Groove, Kuzco is presented with 3 babies to osculation. He simply stamps them with a kiss mark stamper.
• In Moana, Maui asks Moana if the daughter of the master should exist at dwelling kissing babies or something instead of adventuring. Moana just responds with a Death Glare.

    Film — Live-Action

• In The Shaggy DA Wilby Daniels decides to run for District Attorney in order to clean upwardly the abuse in the boondocks. At i betoken he's talking with a female voter with a perambulator; the child inside has a dirty, gummy face, merely the woman gives him a look waiting for him to osculation her baby. He does and then, leaving him with a faceful of chocolate. Just at that moment a photographer from the local paper decides to take Wilby's picture.
• In The Chase for Red October, NSC advisor Jeffrey Pelt tells Jack Ryan "I'm a politician, which means that I'm a cheat and a liar. And if I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops.".
• In the 2012 film The Entrada the 2 candidates for office get into a fight over which is going to buss a detail infant. Will Ferrell's grapheme ends up punching the baby in the face when his opponent ducks out of the way.
• In The Bully Dictator, Adenoid Hinkel kisses some babies later on a rally. The baby pisses on him.
• In the 1944 biopic Wilson, Woodrow Wilson'due south married woman and daughters persuade him to run for Governor of New Jersey. When he agrees, he jokes that they'll have to kiss the babies for him.
• In The Candidate, Sen. Crocker Jarmon holds up a toddler at a rally, but doesn't kiss him. It's portrayed rather cynically, as is everything else about American politics in this moving picture.
• Pink does this in The Wall during his hallucination of being a fascist dictator.
• In Spinning Boris, the American political advisors tell Yeltsin'southward girl that her male parent needs to start doing that in order to win votes for his re-ballot. She initially refuses, pointing out that the Russian people expect a "strict begetter" type of ruler, a tsar. It takes a lot of disarming for her to take it.
• The Senator Was Indiscreet: A farce comedy most a bumbling idiot of a Senator, who runs for president. The picture show starts out with a dedication, which begins with "To every pol who has ever jeopardized a baby'south health with unsanitary kisses...".

    Literature

• In "Tableau" past James White, this caused an interstellar war. Upon Showtime Contact with an alien race (that looked like teddy bears), an astronaut decided to practice this. Unfortunately, humans looked like a kind of creature on the alien race's home planet that had the habit of carrying off babies to swallow them and the astronaut's motives were misconstrued.
• Bad Kitty for President makes use of this trope, as it's an ballot parody where Bad Kitty is running for president of the neighborhood cats. The narrator brings upward the kissing babies trope and has kitty kiss the babe of the humans she lives with.
• The children's pic volume Duck for President has Duck do this as role of his campaigning.
• Parodied in Myth-Quoted, in which rival candidates for governor participate in a baby-kissing contest to run across which one's kisses can become the most giggles and least crying out of hundreds of infants within a set time limit. When Aahz enters the race, he ducks out of having to by pointing out that his opponents' efforts are only spreading millions of germs betwixt infants.

    Live-Activity Television receiver

• The Tardily Bear witness with David Letterman: In a joke almost New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Letterman said when running for office Christie "got confused. Kissed a blintz, ate a baby!"
  • Another Letterman gag: in "Top 10 signs [then Presidential candidate] Herman Cain is losing it."

    Kissed a flick of himself and signed a baby

• Parodied in an episode of It'due south E'er Sunny in Philadelphia, where Mac tries to get a woman to give her baby to him so that Dennis can buss it. Naturally, she's a little weirded out.
• On Seinfeld Kramer runs for president of a retirement home'southward condo board; this involves treating some of the senior citizens at that place like the babies in this trope.
• In the 1966 Batman (1966) series when the Penguin runs for Mayor of Gotham he kisses babies.
  • Defied past Batman who is running against him. He refuses to kiss babies because he doesn't want to spread germs. Unfortunately, the people around Batman refuse to sympathize his reasoning and are offended while the Penguin leaps at the opportunity to do and then.
• Subverted by "Mr Hilter" in Monty Python's Flying Circus while canvassing for the North Minehead By-Election.

  Mother: I gave him my baby to kiss, and he chip it - on the head!

• In an episode of Sliders where Professor Arturo runs for Mayor of San Francisco, he screws this upwards by chasing after a woman shouting "Madam, I need to kiss your baby!"
• My Hero has Piers Crispin kissing pocket-sized children during his effort to campaign for Mayor in one episode, though information technology backfires when he tries to kiss Ollie and gets punched in the face (Ollie being the son of George Dominicus/Thermoman, and thus a superbaby).
• One Sat Dark Alive sketch dealt with a candidate committing numerous gaffes to increasing public outrage while trying to kiss babies on the campaign trail. This culminates in him getting egged in the behind and absentmindedly wiping it off with someone's baby.
• In Gilmore Girls, when Jackson is running against Taylor as Town Selectman, at one point he rushes into Luke's diner (their makeshift entrada headquarters), demands "Give me the baby!", grabs his son, and leaves just equally quickly. Sookie (said kid's mother) and Lorelei wonder if he plans to sell it. We never technically see what he was doing, merely odds are good he was invoking this trope.
• Veep: During a campaign end with some anti-vaxxer supporters, Jonah takes the opportunity to kiss a screaming babe. This may non have been the but ane, since a major chicken pox outbreak seems to follow his entrada route.
• The Homo in the High Castle: Similar to the image trope, there's a propaganda video including a prune of an aged Hitler accepting a flower from a little girl.
• The Monkees episode "Monkeee Mayor" when Mike is running for mayor Davy approaches a woman with a stroller and kisses her baby, presumably on Mike's behalf. The woman so throws herself at Davy. He escapes afterward her husband shows up but leaves them with a "Nesmith for Mayor" poster. Later Peter tries to osculation another infant and is swallowed upwardly by the stroller. Finally Mike tries to kiss a baby who slaps him, the "baby" being almost forty years old and in cahoots with Mike's opponent.
• The West Wing mentions this trope several times, ordinarily in reference to Republican senator and eventual Presidential candidate Anrold Vinick. His ability to win over crowds with his amuse, intelligence and genuine passion for the job is a big function of why the Democrats consider him such trigger-happy competition.

  Leo McGarry: Shake every hand in the joint, kiss every infant, hug every widow on Social Security, and sound smarter and more honest than whatsoever Republican they've ever seen — because he is.

    Magazines

• Mentioned in a MAD magazine article from 1962 (also an early version of the Russian Reversal): "Russian politics tin can best be understood by comparing them with American politics. For instance, in America, politicians have to kiss babies, and if they don't, the mothers can take their offices away from them. In Russian federation, the system is somewhat different. To get nutrient, mothers have to buss politicians and if they don't, the politicians tin can take their babies away from them."

    Music

• Invoked by the cover art of Tankard's 2 Faced album, which shows a literally two-faced politician holding a baby.
• Elvis Costello's "Tramp the Clay Down" was inspired by a picture of Margaret Thatcher kissing a crying baby.

    Radio

• Party: Jared and Phoebe hatch a plan to exploit this in Radio. What Could Maybe Become Wrong?

    Video Games

• In the iOS game Blue-blooded, when campaigning for Foozle, Monty orders his children to go out and hold a rally. Being dragons, he has to remind them to only buss the babies, non consume them.
• Referenced in Mass Event 3 - Citadel. When asked how he'd turn Cerberus around, Joker says he'd make them pop again and launch a big P.R campaign - "shaking hands, kissing babes." Miranda tries to right him, simply he knows what he said.
• Mentioned in Escape from Monkey Isle. Gubernatorial candidate Charles Fifty. Charles actually LeChuck in disguise bids the protagonists farewell because he has "easily to kiss and babies to milk shake".
• In Borderlands two, Affections tells the Vault Hunter that Handsome Jack uses body doubles of himself to practice all his "hand-kissing and baby-shaking for him".

    Webcomics

• Inverted in this strip of The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, in which they examine the Golden Mean Fallacy before the Card-Conveying Villain states that he would punch a infant if it posed a threat to global security.

    Western Animation

• An episode of Recess has the equivalent for kids; kissing pets. The boys tries to discredit Gretchen (who'southward running against Vince for form president on a platform of "Girls for Gretchen", although she genuinely wants to practise a skilful job) by having her asked to kiss a pet cadger. She gets out of it by claiming to have a cold.
• In the Looney Tunes curt "Ballot Box Bunny", Yosemite Sam's campaigning for mayor includes kissing babies, none of which seem to bask it. Bugs Bunny disguises himself equally a baby and kisses him, then cries that "the bad man flake my widdle nose!", and all the women starting time to hit Sam over the head with their handbags and umbrellas.
• On ane episode of The Powerpuff Girls the mayor was running for his re-ballot, he mentioned that it was one of his favorite parts. And so we go to meet him kiss babies as if they were on a conveyor belt.
• Done in The Mask cartoon. Of course, when the Mask himself ran for the mayor, he kissed babes instead.
• There was a nasty gag based on this in Family Guy, involving Peter kissing 2 babies but refusing to kiss a particulary ugly/deformed kid.
  • Also, before in the episode, after learning that Lois is running for mayor, Stewie mentions she should be giving speeches, shaking hands, and kissing babies. When Lois does the latter:

  Stewie: Non this babe!

• Futurama, episode "A Head In The Polls": when the head of Richard Nixon runs for President of Earth wearing Bough's trunk, he pulls a baby out of the chest cavity and kisses it.
• In Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Constabulary episode "Guitar Control", Phil tries this during one of his Presidential Election rallies, but mixes things upwards a bit.
• In the Phineas and Ferb episode "The Mom Attractor," Dr. Doofenschmirtz'southward evil scheme is to create a behemothic infant that cries whenever his blood brother (the Mayor) kisses a infant, and so people won't vote for him.
• In an episode of Garfield and Friends, specifically the Orson's Farm/U.Southward. Acres segment, Roy Rooster kisses eggs when running for the title of "leader of the barnyard", since he is a male chicken, and chickens lay eggs.
• An episode of The Simpsons has Mr. Burns running for governor, and at that place'south a scene where he mentions that he needs to become off and do this.
• In an episode of Rick and Morty episode "The Ricklantis Mixup", i of the Ricks on the citadel creates a infant clone of himself for the Presidential Candidate Morty to kiss.
• In an episode of Dog Urban center, Dogfather Bugsy Vile rigs a mayoral election and wins with just 5 votes. Amongst his duties are kissing babies and christening a transport with champagne bottle. Hilarity ensues when he gets the two just a little mixed up....
• When the Flim Flam brothers appear in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic one of their acts during their Villain Song is to pick upwards Applebloom and osculation her.
• Bowser does this in an episode of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. three. He's but able to get through with it thanks to a "Prissy Guy Potion" cooked up by Cheatsy and Kooky.
• In Chowder, Gorgonzola advises the titular grapheme to exercise this when he runs for the president of the apprentices' club. They try this past sneaking into a hospital, and accidentally inciting the babies to riot.
• Steven Universe: Mayor Bill Dewey does and so very demonstratively in "Lars and the Absurd Kids". His son Cadet rather morosely claims that he never kisses him like that.
• An example occurs in All Hail King Julien, when Julien ^annotation Who likes to move information technology, move it! Who likes to...motion information technology! decides one of these would be a good manner to boost his approving rating, which initially works well but things get awry when Mort uses his small stature to laissez passer himself off as a baby to get a kiss.

  Mort: Everything I imagined information technology would be...

  Julien: Mort, I am busy winning anybody'south approval!

  Mort: Well, y'all got my vote, Mr. President!

  Mort: I'll never wash this forehead over again!

  Lemur: The king just kicked a baby!

• The Sheep in the Large City episode "The Wool of the People" has General Specific and Sheep run for mayor. At one point, they get into a chase and briefly finish so they can both kiss a baby. Lady Richington, who was General Specific'due south campaign manager, is also handed the baby, merely she doesn't desire to kiss the child, and so she has her butler do it.
• The Dr. Zitbag'south Transylvania Pet Shop episode "Horrorlection Fever" has Dr. Zitbag run for mayor. At one point, he has several clones of himself sent out to convince the denizens of Transylvania to vote for him. 1 of the clones is seen kissing a infant, who responds past beating him up.
• In the Goof Troop episode "A Goof of the People", Goofy is instructed on how to be a politician and is informed by the How-To Narrator that he tin earn more voters by shaking people's hands and kissing babies. Humorously, Goofy mixes it up past shaking a infant'south paw and kissing a big guy who ends up punching him.
• Alluded to in the Transformers: Rescue Bots episode "Mayor May Non", which has Chase running for mayor against Mayor Luskey. One scene has Hunt shaking some potential voters' hands and request them if they have any babies they'd similar kissed.
• In the C.O.P.Southward. (1988) episode "The Example of the Sinister Spa", Large Dominate orchestrates a plot where the mayor of Empire City is hypnotized into making Berserko deputy mayor. I scene has Berserko equally deputy mayor kissing a infant, who reacts by crying.
• The Gravedale Loftier episode "Save Our School" involves Vinnie Stoker (a vampire), Elephant Boy (a humanoid elephant wearing a bag over his head equally a Visual Pun on Joseph Merrick) and Suey (a humanoid sus scrofa daughter) running for class president. Suey at ane point easily Max Schneider a campaign poster that depicts her kissing a piglet.
• The Mike, Lu & Og episode "Nosotros the People", where Mike chooses to run for Governor of Albonquetine during Wendel's reelection, features a variant involving infant animals. Mike helps her approving rating past kissing a piglet, with Wendel failing to exercise the same when he attempts to kiss a baby porcupine.

    Real Life (specially notable examples merely)

• Vladimir Putin was also known to kiss fish for this purpose.
• Punk rock vocalist Jello Biafra ran for mayor of San Francisco in the late 1970s and inverted the trope: he kissed easily and shook babies.
• Romanian dictator Nikolae Ceaucescu used to do this. Trouble: He was a germophobe, and so the kids had to exist... prepared before that.
• Notably, Andrew Jackson was the showtime president to be offered a babe to kiss. He refused, instead complimenting the baby and and then handing it over to his Secretarial assistant of War to buss instead.
  • Other Presidents who refused to kiss babies include Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and Richard Nixon. Draw whatever conclusions you wish.
• George Due west. Bush, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney have all attempted to concord or kiss babies, only for them to first crying. There are probably examples of other politicians as well having this problem as well. A lot of babies don't like being held by strangers.
  • Although there was that funny YouTube video of Michelle Obama beingness given a infant to kiss, only for the child to start crying. She passed her to her married man, and the baby immediately became tranquillity.
• The quiz website Sporcle has a quiz with pictures of American presidents and presidential candidates kissing and holding babies; the player is asked to name the politicians in the pictures. There is as well an international version featuring politicians and leaders from effectually the world.
• Inverted with Ron Paul who was once given a baby, but for the babe to osculation him on the cheek. (One would hope that babies like Ron Paul—he delivered babies for a living!)
• A brief shot during the ESPN "30 for 30" Pony Exce$$ installment showed Bill Clements (former Governor of Texas and so chairman of the Board of Governors at Southern Methodist Academy ^note and who, unknown to voters at the fourth dimension, was knee joint deep in the recruiting scandal involving the football program that led to the NCAA issuing the death sentence for the football programme in early 1987 ) during his run to return to the Governor's Mansion in 1986; ^notation Clements had been elected in 1978 but lost his bid for re-ballot in 1982 with Clements having noted a babe he just kissed was the first time he did that in his 1986 gubernatorial campaign.
• A notable – and notably twisted – case from Italy. In the wake of a 2019 scandal involving social services abusing their power and supposedly taking away children from perfectly normal families in a pocket-size Italian boondocks (subsequently revealed to accept been overblown and wrongly pinned down on a rival party), Italian far-right politico and and then-Government minister for Domestic Affairs Matteo Salvini concluded a party rally by parading on stage a child whom he stated had been rescued from the system and given back to her legitimate family. The catch? It quickly turned out the photograph-op was entirely manufactured to brainstorm with, as said child was the daughter of a local supporter and had never even set foot in the vicinity of the boondocks where the scandal had taken place.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoliticiansKissBabies

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