Dog Day Afternoon

There's no politics like dog politics, as presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has discovered, after the fact was revealed that he had once strapped the family dog in a carrier to the roof of the Romney car for a twelve-hour nonstop trip, during which the canine soiled the windows of the vehicle and made his scatalogical spectacle part of the permanent family legend for Romney's five grossed-out sons, thus later further reinforcing the the former Massachusetts governor's reputation for emotionless pragmatism. Since PETA and other animal rights groups have protested the governor's actions, Romney has tried to put the incident behind him, and Romney's wife Ann has testified to the former Massachusetts governor's humane treatment of the pet, Seamus in the political family blog, Five Brothers. Nonetheless, comic responses like this and this on YouTube have become viral hits that continue to dog the candidate.

Here in California, voters are incensed by legislation that has been passed to mandate spaying and neutering pets. More grass-roots activism and political mobilization by interest groups has happened in connection with this issue than seemingly more critical current items on the legislative agenda that include health care and education. One of the most visible presences on the Internet is PetPAC, which charges that anti-pet cold-hearted legislators are manipulating data in their information design. See their lesson in how to make a phony graph to get a sense of their rhetoric.