Steven Birn
Steven Birn Speaks
Idiocy abounds in the Presidential election this week.
David Axlerod kicked off the insanity by tweeting about an old Mitt Romney story wherein he put his dog in a crate and strapped him to the top of his car on a family trip to Canada. Romney supporters be they in the campaign, the GOP or surrogates, obviously waiting for the Democrats to bring this stupid story up again, countered by quoting out of one of Obama’s books about how he ate dogs as a child in Indonesia. The Democrats are trying the GOP war on dogs angle, the Romney people have more or less killed the angle for Obama.
The Romney story is absolutely stupid. I have an Irish Terrier named Seamus, he loves a car ride. If Seamus were used to going into a dog crate there is little doubt in my mind that he would be thrilled to go for a car ride in the crate. I have had other dogs that don’t like car rides and it wouldn’t matter what we did they wouldn’t be happy. To go after Romney for taking his dog on vacation strapped to the roof of a car in his crate, which the dog apparently enjoyed on many occasions is the height of pandering stupidity.
The Romney (or GOP or Romney surrogate) response to this has been equally stupid. Granted, their hand was forced when David Axlerod tweeted about Romney’s dog episode. They clearly were waiting for the Democrats to play the dog card and when the Dems did the Romney folks had their story about Obama eating dogs ready to go. A smart political move, even if it’s stupid. Who cares if Obama ate dogs when he was a kid in Indonesia? When you’re a kid, you eat what’s put in front of you. If it’s dog, so be it. Just like Romney’s dog, this is old news as well. Obama wrote this in one of his books published long before he took office.
You have to wonder why Axlerod and the Obama camp are playing the dog card, much less playing it in April. Perhaps they want to take the focus off the fact that Obama has overseen $5 trillion in new debt since he took office. Perhaps they want to take away from the fact that gas prices have doubled. Perhaps they want to take away from the fact that unemployment has been above 8% for three years. Perhaps they thought bringing up the Romney dog story again would shift focus away from four very bad weeks for Obama. Whatever their reasoning is, it feels like a desperation move and one must wonder why team Obama is in desperation mode in April.
Let’s look at this from a different angle. Why would the Obama camp bring up this negative story now when it could be saved for a week before the election? If Romney wasn’t already immune to the dog attack (it’s been out there for years and he was asked about it in a GOP debate) surely there’s no point in making him immune to the attack in April. Why wouldn’t Obama save this attack, as dumb as it is, until the week before the election? If the Obama camp really thinks this hurts Romney, it seems you’d want this out there right before people vote rather than six plus months before. You want people going to the polling booth thinking ‘I’m not voting for him, he hates dogs.’ Instead everyone will have forgotten about this nonsense in a week or two, which is six months too early for it to be effective.
Steven Birn is an attorney and conservative political junkie and blogger. For more news and commentary visit Steven Birn Speaks.
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I remember when Obama had promised his daughters a dog. When he finally got one, instead of getting a little Yorky that little girls could put ribbons on, he goes out and gets a big, rough and tumble Portuguese Water Spaniel; the closest breed that resembles him. How selfish and how arrogant!!!
maybe u should be reporting how RON PAUL IS WINNING THE DELEGATES & DRAWING SEVERAL THOUSAND AT RALLIES FROM WISCONSIN TO COLORADO TO CALIFORNIA !! HE IS THE FRONT RUNNER FOLKS, DONT GIVE UP ON RON !!