McCain and Obama: Gone to the Dogs

Since I'm on vacation this week, I thought I'd lighten the mood a bit with this piece about pet owners preferring McCain. Proving that demographers have waaaaay too much time on their hands, they produced this interesting tidbit:

Christina Duffney, a spokeswoman for the American Kennel Club, said "you usually
connect with things that you're familiar with, so that could be a part of" why
pet owners lean toward McCain.

Well, if voters identify with a guy who owns pets, it's easy to see why they'd like the Arizona senator. He has a veritable menagerie, including Sam the English springer spaniel, Coco the mutt, turtles Cuff and Link, Oreo the black and white cat, a ferret, three parakeets and a bunch of saltwater fish.

On the other hand, the poll found that among people who don't have pets, Obama leads McCain 48 percent to 34 percent. But that still leaves McCain looking strong, since the majority of homes have a pet.

I must admit we are among the few non-pet-owners in our neighborhood (a Golden Retriever kind of place), although we discussed getting ferrets before having our wonderful son and daughter. And every now and then, when they've had too much sugar and too little sleep, we are tempted to re-consider our 'raise ferrets instead' plan.

But being serious, strength and familiarity in these "all-American households" is good news for McCain. Who's for McCain dog leashes - good conversation piece walking through the neighborhood twice a day!