Roofed Rover Dogs Romney’s Humanization Drive: Carlson

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Mitt Romney’s enduring problem isthat we don’t know what lies beneath the eager-to-pleasedemeanor that leads him to emit impenetrable lines like the onethis weekend about loving Michigan because its “trees are theright height.”

This creates a vacuum that inevitably gets filled withmorsels of insight like the old story about his onetime dog,Seamus. In a web ad deployed last month during the SouthCarolina primary, Newt Gingrich resurrected a 2007 Boston Globearticle telling the tale of how Romney strapped the family’sIrish setter to the roof of the car for a 12-hour drive toCanada. According to the candidate’s son Tagg, stops werecarefully calculated to allow the hound to answer the call ofnature, but Seamus didn’t get the memo. Dad calmly pulled into agas station, hosed down the dog, the car and the crate, and theterrifying ride resumed.