Mark J Penn, tidigare rådgivare till Bill och Hillary Clinton, varnar för hur politikerbarn exploateras.. Having been through the partisan wars over impeachment in 1998 as an adviser to Bill Clinton, I have a pretty good idea about how politics and personal lives can get tangled up.
And the personal lives of potential presidents, especially when running for the first term, are important factors, along with their experience, ideas, vision and values. But the personal lives of their underage children? That is a bridge too far.
On Tuesday, the mainstream media, which never looked into allegations against John Edwards that turned out to be true and might have affected the race, splashed the personal life of Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter onto virtually every front page, including this paper's - even going as far as to cloak the details in news articles about the vice presidential vetting process.
But the media doesn't deserve all the blame for this growing tendency to report on the personal lives of a candidates children. Some of the voters and the candidates themselves have also played a role.
In recent years, highly educated and well-off voters have shown an increased appetite for personality-based campaigns. In some polls these voters rate personality as more important than issues in determining their vote. Newspapers and cable television recognize the trend and are working to meet the demand.
Candidates have responded to this groundswell of voter interest by writing books about their personal histories and showing more willingness to include even the most intimate of tragedies in their political speeches and using their children as hood ornaments. In an effort to show their success as parents and as people, they are putting their families on display and in the cross hairs.
When people raised personal questions in 2000 about Hillary Clinton, many of her advisers urged her to bring out Chelsea to show what a great child she had raised. Before this year when Chelsea made the decision as an adult to go out on the campaign trail, Mrs. Clinton steadfastly refused to put her daughter in the limelight.
She was perhaps one of the few who understood that when you thrust your children front and center one day, reporters will start interviewing their kindergarten teachers the next. Thats just not fair for the children (who never choose a political life) or their teachers. Unfortunately, not enough people appreciate the fact that when a reporter asks questions about an underage child, there is only one answer: Its a private matter between her and her parents.
There are many legitimate questions surrounding Sarah Palin and her experience and qualifications and it's only natural that the press would be tracking down her story. But making Palins daughter the most famous child in the history of a vice presidential nominee is just plain wrong.
There are some big issues in this election, from war and peace to the deficit and finding enough energy for our economy. Maybe its time to talk less about the personal lives of the children of the candidates and more about the future of our children.