Is there anyone in America who is not aware that Mitt Romney put his Irish Setter, Seamus, in a crate lashed to the roof of the family car for an eight-hour drive to Ontario in the 1980s? And that when the results of an unscheduled bathroom break trickled down the car windows, Mitt stopped at a gas station and efficiently hosed down the dog, the crate and the car and carried on?

Anyone still in the dark about this?

That incident has spawned criticism from dog lovers, skits and jokes on late night television, a “super pack” called Dogs Against Romney [3] with its charmingly pointed “I Ride Inside” bumpersticker, and countless op eds by Gail Collins, for which we gave The New York Times columnist our first-ever “Dogging the Hound Award. [4]”
 

As Amy Davidson recently pointed out in The New Yorker [5] (which gives cover play this week to Romney’s crucible but with opponent Rick Santorum on the roof), dogs have always been part of presidential politics. So this is no great exception. But presidents and candidates for that office generally attempt to use their good relations with dogs as a selling point.

I wonder: If you liked most everything about Romney and he was your candidate, would the Seamus story keep you from voting for him?