Our Candidates: Mitt Romney

In a Phronesisaical public service series of brief glimpses we hope will shed light upon the deepest, hollowest recesses of the current slate of presidential candidates, we begin this week with Mitt Romney.

...Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., has angered animal rights activists for strapping his dog to the roof of his car on a family trip from Boston to Ontario, Canada.

According to the Boston Globe, in one of the family's 12-hour drives to their family's cottage in Canada over 25 years ago, Romney strapped a dog carrier to the roof of the car for the whole trip -- with the family Irish setter, Seamus, inside.

Seamus protested in a scatological way, going to the bathroom on the roof of the car.

UPDATE:

Woolcott:

The defeat of the comprehensive immigration bill may be the tastiest victory for the mau-mau right since "Rathergate," but it's dealt a deflating blow to the Mitt Romney presidential campaign. To exploit the bill's unpopularity, Romney's crack team of advisors had planned to strap an illegal alien to the top of Romney's motorcade limo and chauffeur the undocumented worker around New Hampshire from campaign stop to campaign stop. This publicity brainstorm was intended to serve double duty: highlighting Romney's opposition to illegal immigration and converting the media storm over his strapping the family dog, an Irish setter named Seamus, to the roof of the car on a long vacation trip until the poor animal diarrhea'd ("'Dad!...Gross!'' A brown liquid was dripping down the back window...") into a political plus. His staff convinced their doofus boss that his best bet to defuse the controversy was to tackle it head-on on his own terms. To prevent similar bowel troubles from bedevilling the wind-whipped rooftop Guatamalan or Mexican in custody, Romney's "people" intended to have a Port-o-potty hooked up to one of the motorcade cars and make regular "pit stops" at gas stations where Mitt could have his picture taken at the pumps. With the defeat of the immigration bill, alas, the lease on the Port-o-potty has been null-and-voided and Mitt's eager-beaver staffers have been pulled off the manhunt for a suitably grungy looking illegal immigrant with no English language skills and sinister eyebrows.

UPDATE (29 June):

Ouch. Romney responds:

"...PETA is not happy that my dog likes fresh air."