Why has the issue of how America’s presidential candidates treat members of the dog kingdom suddenly taken on such prominence? For France’s Le Figaro, columnist Thomas Vampouille offers a view from across the Atlantic of what Europeans have dubbed ‘Dog-Gate.’
For Le Figaro, Thomas Vampouille starts out this way:
The duel for the White House between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama has begun with an unexpected topic: the relationship of the candidates with man’s best friend.
While the French regularly question the level of intellectual debate in their presidential campaigns, Americans seem less prone to such qualms. For several days now, the camps of Obama and Romney – the men who will be on the November ballot – have focused on a rather incongruous theme: the way the two candidates … treat dogs.
For thirty years, every time Republican Mitt Romney has put himself up for election, out of the oven pops the same casserole. The case dates back to the summer of 1983, when the former governor of Massachusetts took his family on vacation to Canada. In the back of the family Chevrolet, his five boys left little room for their Irish setter. In the event, Mitt Romney didn’t hesitate to put Seamus – the name of the dog – in a container on the roof of the vehicle, who remained there for the duration of the nine-hour journey.
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