In the annals of presidential campaign coverage, I am an asterisk, and a tiny one at that – the journalist who unearthed the story of how Mitt Romney once drove to Canada with his dog Seamus in a carrier strapped to the roof of the family station wagon. In the nearly five years that have passed since I dug up that golden nugget, there’s been so much chatter about the anecdote that “Romney” and “dog” have become inseparable dance partners in Google searches entered around the world. (In just one sample week last month, that search snagged hundreds of fresh Web mentions.) Still, I have refrained from writing more about the Romneys’ Irish setter and his bout of highway-borne gastric distress. The reason? I dread the thought that Seamus might somehow make it into the lead paragraph of my eventual obituary.
What our fascination with Mitt Romney’s dog Seamus says about our culture
Yet, here we are at the start of another primary season, with Romney once again awaiting the verdict from New Hampshire that could sink or propel the presidential ambitions he’s harbored at least since his father’s were dashed in 1968. And here we are, once again, watching the media and blogosphere — even the sober Wall Street Journal — fixate on Romney’s treatment of his dog nearly three decades ago. I’m wading in again because I’ve come to believe that the endurance of the Seamus story sheds fascinating light on our media and political cultures. Just as interesting is the light it sheds on Romney himself.
To recap: Sometime during a 12-hour drive from Boston to Canada in 1983, Mitt’s oldest son, Tagg, noticed a brown liquid running down the rear window of the family station wagon. Realizing the liquid was being discharged by their dog, Mitt pulled off the highway and into a gas station, borrowed a hose to wash down Seamus and the car, and then returned the dog to his rooftop carrier for the duration of the trip. Most media reports have accurately relayed those basics. However, exaggerations and faulty assumptions have been advanced, most notably by New York Times columnist Gail Collins, who has trotted out the ghost of poor Seamus in more than 30 of her pieces since 2007.