[Sgt_Schultze]

In the event of a candidate's death, dems would be circumspect to avoid any campaigning at any eulogy. In fact, it might be better to have the death/accident of the child of the nominee to elicit maximum sympathy and allow for legitimate withdraw without the taint of wothdrawl for a potential loss. The sympathy would be there.

Announcing Condi as VP 2004 would go far to guard against this event.

[Sal]

OMG, Sgt. A stroke of genius, and you're right that they would have learned not to go over the top, but rather let the sympathy develop naturally.

But I think you're still thinking with too much decency. I don't even want to type it straight out, but consider. If the candidate herself lost a child, say right before her first debate (or at any time it started to get too dicey), it would be too cold and cruel to expect her to debate, campaign, etc.

Anyway, we all know her already, right? Surrogates could appear in her place shamelessly promoting her as the hard fighting champion of the little people...