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editorial | IT’S NOT JUST SEAMUS

A dog-eat-dog campaign

  April 29, 2012

Recent presidential campaigns have perfected the use of “dog-whistle politics” -- messages that help motivate their political bases without turning off skeptical swing voters. This time around, supporters of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have taken the metaphor all too literally, by refusing to let go of the other guy’s alleged mistreatment of actual canines. The broader fixation on dog jokes over policy differences doesn’t bode well for the general-election campaign.

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