For presidential candidates, posing with supporters’ babies is a rite of passage as important as eating deep-fried state fair food or enduring endless debates. TIME celebrates this hallowed tradition with 34 photos of infants in varying states of joy, indifference and abject terror on the campaign trail in 2012.
Babies of the Campaign Trail
Carolyn Kaster / AP
President Barack Obama holds a sleeping baby boy as he visits Ross' restaurant in Bettendorf, Iowa, June 28, 2011.
