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
Eric Thayer / Reuters
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum greets diners during a campaign stop at the Tilt'n Diner in Tilton, New Hampshire, Jan. 5, 2012.
