Kristi Noem’s killed dog can crush the vice-presidential dream

A killed dog could cost Kristi Noem her job as US Vice President. Dogs can both build and destroy political careers in the United States.

That’s what President Harry Truman is said to have said in 1948. Man’s best friend has played an important role in American election campaigns for the past 100 years. For some, the dog stories provided good help, while others got into trouble.

If the speculation that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem dreams of becoming Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate is true, a dog story could cause trouble for her.

Shot on the farm

When the dog Cricket was 14 months old, Noem gave up raising it. She took the dog to a pile of gravel in her yard and used a shotgun. The same day she shot a goat. She admits it took three shots to get the job done.

This is revealed in the book she publishes at the beginning of May: “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward”.

Writing such a book is often regarded as a kind of entry in the competition for political office.

The dog is always right

Bits of the book have been leaked to the media. Among other things, the dog story. Now Noem receives strong criticism, also from other conservatives.

One of them is Alyssa Griffin, who was an adviser to Trump before she became more critical of him. She believes that dogs are a gift from God and should not be treated as such.

Griffin’s former colleague from the circle around Trump, Sarah Matthews, is also critical. She wonders how on earth a politician with ambitions talks about such things, writes The Guardian.

Meghan McCain is the daughter of former presidential candidate John McCain. She https://twitter.com/MeghanMcCain/status/1783982549045334039 that you can survive most things in American politics, but not dog abuse.

Dog on the roof

When Mitt Romney was the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, an almost 30-year-old dog story surfaced. In 1983, the Romney family went on a long road trip. For 12 hours the dog Seamus sat in a cage on the roof of the car.

– He liked the fresh air, the candidate apologized.

That did not calm America’s many dog ​​lovers.

A dog after politics

A dog killer who wants to be vice president might have a chance with Donald Trump. He is one of three presidents who did not have a pet while living in the White House. The other two were Andrew Johnson and James Polk.

Trump has several times brought in dogs when he talks about political opponents. And in a way that is not flattering to the dogs.

In American political science, there is a discussion about how important dogs are, and whether it is wise to use them in the election campaign.

But almost half of American households have a dog. Therefore, many election campaign strategists believe that the presidential candidate must prove to be a dog friend. Researchers at Arizona State University believe that dogs can make politicians seem more human.

Some have benefited greatly politically from appearing to be dog-friendly, while others have experienced that the four-legged friends are stepping in the political mess.

Might have saved Nixon

In 1952, Richard Nixon was the Republican vice presidential candidate. He was accused of having enriched himself illegally. This increased the pressure to find a new candidate.

Then Nixon arranged a live televised speech.

There he denied all charges. But in retrospect, it’s the ending that people remember. Then he told me that there was one thing he had been given that he would never give back: a puppy that the two young daughters had been given by a voter.

It was called Checkers. That is why the speech was later remembered as “the Checkers speech”.

The response was overwhelmingly positive, and Nixon was elected Vice President.

Grab them by the ears

Warren Harding, president from 1921 to 1923, was one of the truly great dog lovers. He was probably one of the first presidents to use the dog politically. His terrier Laddie Boy even got his own chair at the table where the government met.

President Lyndon B. Johnson was fond of animals. But there was an outcry when he was about to lift up the dog Her and took a firm grip on the ears. Dog lovers objected.

But former President Harry Truman wondered “what the hell are they screaming about, that’s how you treat dogs”.

Today’s President Joe Biden has had several German Shepherds. In February, one of them triggered a small scandal, when it became known that the dog Commander bit the guards from the Secret Service.

CNN gained access to papers which showed that America’s “first dog” caused major problems in the guard around the president.