“If you want a friend in Washington,” Harry Truman famously snarled, “get a dog!”
Old Harry wasn’t kidding. He had two for good measure: Feller, a cocker spaniel, and Mike, an Irish setter (more about Irish setters later). In fact, the vast majority of U.S. Presidents have been dog owners, and every president in the twentieth century has owned at least one dog (Calvin Coolidge seems to hold the record at 11). In fact, the family dog has been credited with saving several political careers from ruin.
In 1944 FDR was in his toughest reelection battle, against New York governor Thomas Dewey. By then Roosevelt had held the White House for three terms, longer than any president, and voters were restless. Dewey was gaining on him in the polls when he launched his most venomous attack: Roosevelt, he charged, had left his Scottish terrier, Fala, behind after a trip to Alaska and sent a flotilla of Navy vessels back to fetch him at a considerable cost to the U.S. taxpayer—and in a time of war, no less. The charge generated front-page headlines, and Dewey’s outraged surrogates derided FDR as corrupt and incompetent.
Roosevelt mounted an impassioned if somewhat tongue-in-cheek response to “Falagate” in a memorable 1944 speech on September 23, 1944. You can criticize my friends and my family, thundered the 32nd president, but you can’t criticize my dog. “Fala is Scottish and all these allegations about spending all this money has made his little soul furious!”
Dewey quickly faded in the polls. FDR won reelection to a fourth term handily, and some pundits credited his Fala speech with turning the race around. The voters seemed to be saying that you can go after a politician personally, you can attack his friends and family, but don’t mess with his dog!
Apparently a young Richard Nixon was paying close attention. Eight years later, when the junior senator from California and vice presidential candidate under Dwight Eisenhower was accused of harboring a secret political slush fund, he delivered the famous—or infamous, depending on your view—Checkers speech, one of the first and most brilliant uses of television in a presidential campaign. In defending the political gifts he’d been given and now said he would return, he vowed never to relinquish one gift, a black and white cocker spaniel his daughters had named Checkers. “The kids just love that dog,” Nixon said defiantly to the camera; he wasn’t going to send it back to Texas, whence it came by way of a supporter, no matter what.
Eisenhower’s aides had insisted Senator Nixon must tender his resignation from the ticket at the conclusion of the speech. Nixon refused, pinning his political career on a cocker spaniel. It worked. Americans forgave Nixon (this time) and Eisenhower went on to win the White House that year with Nixon as his running mate. Checkers had a new home.
Amazing, when you think about it, that our devoted canine companions have changed the course of history. What would have happened if FDR had lost in 1944? Or if Nixon had faded into political oblivion? It’s hard to imagine. Our lives may have been very different today if not for Fala and Checkers.
There is something about an animal that humanizes political leaders who otherwise might seem distant and emotionally unapproachable. When you see a president being joyously greeted after a long trip by his dog on the White House lawn, it’s almost impossible not to feel warm toward the guy, at least for a moment. You think, Hey, I could talk to him, maybe not about politics, but we could talk about our dogs. Remember how caught up we all were in the Obama family’s search for a First Family pet? The president had promised his daughters that they could have a dog after the 2008 election. Today Bo, a Portuguese water dog, is the reigning First Dog (I suspect my Millie has a crush on him).
I follow politics pretty closely, but the only time I ever felt moved to write to a president was in 2002 after Bill Clinton lost his five-year-old Lab, Buddy. Julee and I had just put down our beloved Lab, Marty, and my heart went out to President Clinton. Whatever political differences I might have had with his presidency, I wanted him to know that this time I felt his pain.
Which brings us to former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney and his current canine problem.
Actually the episode itself is not all that current. In 1983, upon embarking on a family road trip from Boston to his parents’ summer cottage in Ontario, Canada, Mr. Romney strapped his Irish setter, Seamus, to the roof of the family station wagon. Not to worry. The candidate assures us that the dog was safely secured in a windproof kennel Romney himself had modified for the 12-hour road trip. Seamus would be more comfortable, he was convinced, on the roof of the car than crowded inside with the kids and all their gear.
Seriously?
Apparently Seamus had difficulties during the trip and at one point had to be hosed down at a rest area before being returned to his rooftop accommodations. [Important disclaimer: Millie dislikes cars and has to be tranquilized before traveling, but she is never relegated to the roof.]
This strikes many dog lovers and otherwise sane people as total lunacy. Opponents are running ads against Governor Romney on the subject and websites denouncing him as an irresponsible dog owner have sprung up. And again I am amazed that an election with so much riding on it—a war, a fragile economic recovery—could be swung by a dog. Because this election is likely to be close, and the Seamus affair could very well be the difference. There are about 40 million American households with dogs and not too many families drive around with their pet strapped to the roof of the car.
We are a funny people, Americans, moved and inspired in ways that are difficult to explain, perhaps, to the rest of the world. But it is important to us how a politician treats his pets, as important as how he treats his constituents. We see in a person’s relationship to an animal something fundamental about their character. To some of us, how they treat God’s dearest creatures reveals their souls. I’m interested in seeing if the ghost of Seamus comes back to haunt Mitt Romney’s quest for the White House.
In the meantime here’s my question for you: Would your dog or cat or wallaby (don’t laugh, Coolidge owned one of those too) make an inspiring First Pet? Tell me why. Post below. And take this fun quiz about presidential pets.
