I pretty much hate all politicians.

Yet I also think – or is it more just hope – that a moderate, calm Republican President could perhaps tone down the partisanship “volume” in the States and move the USA and especially his party more towards the centre than anyone else could.

I’d rather that president was Jon Huntsman than Mitt Romney but I’d settle for Romney as the lesser evil over any of the other alternatives.

Also, frankly, it looks to me like Obama has failed. He’s been a huge let-down and if he loses, well, I won’t be that sad to see him go.

Obama hasn’t advanced science and he certainly hasn’t advanced the US space exploration program as I’d have hoped. I still hate how he cancelled the Constellation “lunar return” program glibly dismissing it witha stuipid one-liner and allowed the Space Shuttles to retire without immediate successors being readied to take over at once. Obama has left NASA’s manned spaceflight future very ncertain obliged tohitchhike onRussian craft.

Obama says he believes in HIRGO but cannot and will not actually do anything about it. Romney says he won’t act and doesn’t believe – but deep down I get the impression Mittens (& Huntsman even more so) *does* accept the science in a way the others don’t and that if circumstances permit it, Romney could perhaps act where others – even Obama – can’t or won’t.

I just wish I could see better choices than those you’ve got to choose from. To me, based on who is the lesser evil Romney & Obama seem pretty close together behind Jon Huntsman (who almost certainly won’t win) and streets ahead of any of the other realistic alternatives – Newt, Ron Paul & last the stinking Santorum.

Yeah, that Mitt Romney dog story reflects very poorly on Mittens indeed.

However, a couple of points I think need making :

I think it would be nuts for voters to base their presidential selection solely on this incident,

Yep I agree – it would be as nuts as considering Obama only based on his attendance at Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s sermons or by how low he bows to Saudi dictators. No politician, no human being is perfect.

I think it’s important to remember that folks are not voting for nicest bloke in the pub or top dog owner of the year, they’re voting for who can best run a nation.

Then there’s this :

I went to the then 37-year-old Tagg only after having heard the Seamus story at the very end of a long interview with a close friend of the Romney family. Seeking to penetrate the stock image of the air-brushed family, I had asked that friend what stories the Romneys reminisced about in the privacy of their own home.

Both are quotes from Neil Swidey, the journalist who broke that story from this source :

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/01/08/what_our_fascination_with_mitt_romneys_dog_seamus_says_about_our_culture/?page=2

So I think this :

He used to tell the story all the time, for laughs, as I’m sure people listened to him with an insincere smile pasted on their faces waiting for him to finish.

was unfair and inaccurate.

He WAS “around” back then. Was he a Republican then?

You don’t see how he’s superior to the shamelessly hateful, infantile, and downright insane bigots on the right? Then there’s no need to bother reasoning with you.

*okay, it was with socks and wasn’t hard (my friends are trying to train their dog not to jump on people), but it still felt good

I don’t see Obama as a superior president. He certainly isn’t a liberal (myself and many others have known this for more than a couple of years now). In fact, if he was around 30 years ago, he would almost certainly be a mainstream member of the Republican party. However, I may have little choice but to vote for him as the current crop of Republican candidates are simply much worse than him.

There are many more reasons not to vote for Romney (take your pick…whether back-pedaling on his own health care plans he pushed in Mass, currently strong anti-abortion stance, happy to get us in a war with Iran, etc, etc…or just the fact that he waffles so much on many of his issues that *no one* can tell you where he really stands – not sure he does). This is just another straw.

A brown liquid was dripping down the back window,(…).

(…) Romney (…) borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway.

I guess Romney knows how to deal with Santorum after all.

But yeah, the episode clearly shows Romney torturing a living being without any compassion. That’s why nobody’s making a fuss about the story – it might help Romney with conservative voters.