March 23, 2012 09:14 PM UTC

The Lingering Pain of "Dogs Against Romney"

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Durango Herald reports with local reactions, it’s a tale that just won’t go away:

Though it happened more than a quarter of a century ago, today, this anecdote is the foremost gag in national news: regular fodder for comedians David Letterman and Stephen Colbert, the subject of the New Yorker’s March 12 cover; and a Facebook group “Dogs Against Romney” with 42,000 fans. Since 2007, New York Times columnist Gail Collins has invoked the incident – with puckish glee – more than 50 times and both President Barack Obama and Rick Santorum have used it to malign Romney’s character as weird and without compassion.

The tale has palpably hurt Romney with Durangoans – who, when it comes to loving dogs, are perhaps second only to the canine-worshipping Hindus of Nepal…

Lou Galinson, owner of Pet Haus, said, “We’ve never had anybody come in and say, ‘I need to put my dog on the top of my car, like a kayak.’ That just sounds like animal cruelty.”

Galinson said the proper way to transport a dog would be inside the vehicle, ideally secured by a seat belt.

Dr. Brian Marshall of Bridge Veterinary Clinic said, “My concern is that if he got in a car wreck, that dog is curtains.”

The story of Mitt Romney’s hapless dog strapped to the roof of his car on a family vacation many years ago doesn’t seem at first glance like the issue that could really hurt him–not with so many more weighty issues that could, either taking the wrong side to appeal to the right wing GOP base in the primary, or just plain flip-flopping.

Anecdotally, we can tell you we’re truly amazed at how often we hear about this story from nonpolitical friends. It seems to us if you could make something like “personhood” stick to Romney like the story of his dog on the road trip, you could call this election over right now.