When my dad was the mayor of a small Florida city, not one rival politician, to my knowledge, attacked me or my sister in a public forum.  I guess we dodged a bullet.  Look at what's happened recently to Hunter Biden, and to Ivanka Trump's business. The fact is that the children of politicians, for the longest time off limits, are now political targets.  And that is bad for our democracy, because it is another distraction on the heap of side-shows that obfuscates actual issues and what candidates might do to make life better for constituents.

In the Trump family a case may be made that some of his children, including Ivanka, were fair game because he brought them into the White House as presidential advisors.  But for the most part kids have been off limits.  And rightly so.  When they are children there is no possible excuse for bringing them inside the political center ring unless their parents put them there, in which case an argument could be made that Social Services should step in because they are abusive parents.  But even when the kids are grown up, the only reason they might be legitimate targets is if they are doing something illegal involving their elected or soon to be possibly elected parents.