Romney ’08

As the righties are trying to get comfortable with Romney, I’ve read a few times that in 2008 the knock on Mitt was that he was too conservative. Off the top of my head, I don’t remember much about the ’08 GOP primary race. I liked Giuliani for whatever reasons, and when he dropped out, I must have stopped paying attention.

I have a hard time imaging Romney as “too much” of anything. McCain was the maverick, so I guess Romney could have been more conservative than that. Looking over the Wikipedia entry on Mitt’s 2008 campaign, I was reminded of this: Romney strapped his dog to the roof of his car on a family vacation.

Yup. Now I remember. That was big news for days.

Romney strapped a dog carrier — with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it — to the roof of the family station wagon for a twelve hour drive from Boston to Ontario, which the family apparently completed, despite Seamus's rather visceral protest.

Massachusetts's animal cruelty laws specifically prohibit anyone from carrying an animal "in or upon a vehicle, or otherwise, in an unnecessarily cruel or inhuman manner or in a way and manner which might endanger the animal carried thereon."

I can hardly wait for Big Media to rediscover this damning character flaw.

As to the rest of the Wikipedia entry and evidence of Mitt’s alleged conservatism, I lost interest before finding any.