The New York Times hit Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Wednesday with a piece detailing the threat his dog allergy poses to his likely 2016 campaign.
“Mr. Walker, who gives a gloomy stump speech filled with ‘worry,’ perhaps could use a four-legged image softener of his own,” reporter Jason Horowitz writes in a serious tone. “But he is allergic to dog dander, an aide confirmed.”
Peter Baker also contributed to the report, which is apparently not an April Fool’s joke, and ran Wednesday under the alternate headlines “Scott Walker’s Dog Allergy Could Be a Campaign Hazard,” and “Scott Walker, Allergic to Dogs, May Run Against Political History.”
“The attention to Mr. Walker’s likely candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination has focused on weighty matters such as his battles with the left, faltering forays into foreign policy and conservative stances on social issues including abortion and gun rights,” Horowitz writes. “But little notice has been given to an area in which he faces a different sort of constitutional challenge: overcoming his aversion to man’s best friend.”
As Horowitz notes, the liberal media has been breathlessly reporting on anything that could possibly be construed as a gaffe or misstep since Walker jumped into the spotlight as a top 2016 contender. (RELATED: Politico Practically Begs National Media To Trump Up Fruitless Walker Claim)
But they may have missed one of the most important attributes of a good candidate, right behind a smart foreign policy, a consistent stance on immigration and the right answer to whether abortion is murder. (RELATED: Walker Uses WaPo ‘Gotcha’ Questions To Fundraise)
“If the ritual for presidential candidates wooing American voters had a handbook, ‘must love dogs’ would be somewhere near the front,” Horowitz writes.
The piece details a long history of dogs in the White House and on the campaign trail, and closely examines Walker’s interaction with animals. His encounters with a bear and a giraffe are chalked up to an effort to “compensate with his difficulty.” And that time he actually greeted a woman with a dog nicely, and pet the dog? That’s “a possible sign of his will to win.”
Eventually the reporters do acknowledge a dog allergy may not be an insurmountable obstacle to a presidential campaign, noting that President Obama’s dog Bo is low-dander, because his daughter Malia is allergic. And because the Times strives to be fair, Horowitz notes three-fourths of the way down the piece in parentheses that Gov. Chris Christie is also allergic.
“(In fairness, Mr. Walker, who had a fish growing up, is not the only allergic White House aspirant: The children of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey also had to settle for a goldfish.)”
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