Remember when David Axelrod tweeted this picture of Obama and needled Romney about the whole dog-on-the-car-roof thing and then we found out that OMG OBAMA ATE DOG and then Eric Fehrnstrom tweeted that this picture was, in retrospect, “chilling.” Remember?
Well, we didn’t know just how chilling until today. Seldom has The Monkey Cage discussed research as important as this:
bq. In this article, we use a multimethod approach to shed light on the strategic use of presidential pets.We draw on primary source materials to demonstrate that pets are an important power center in the White House. Then we turn to presidents’ strategic use of their pets in public.We present a theoretical framework and statistical evidence to explore the conditions under which presidents are most likely to trot out their four-legged friends. We show that presidents carefully gauge the best and worst times to conduct a dog and pony show. In times of war or scandal, dogs are welcome public companions, but not so in periods of economic hardship.
From a newly published article by my colleagues James Lebovic, Forrest Maltzman, Elizabeth Saunders, and Emma Furth (ungated version). The article proceeds from a troubling premise: presidents show off their furry friends not because they are devoted animal lovers (at least sometimes), but to earn the loyalty of voters. Perhaps it’s not surprising that presidents would be manipulative in this way, but scholarship has been strangely silent on this subject. As the authors note:
bq. The entire literature suffers, however, from an obvious, yet unappreciated, deficiency: “wag-the-dog” theory inexplicably ignores dogs. It seems that wag-the-dog theorists have been barking up the wrong tree.
Drawing on 50 years of news coverage of presidential pets, the authors show that such stories are more likely when the president is caught up in a scandal or waging war — exactly what one would expect if Millie or Buddy or Bo was meant to distract the public. However, when the economy is struggling, the opposite is true: presidents appear reluctant to be seen gamboling with their pets on the South Lawn when Americans are suffering.
But even taking account of these factors, Obama remains unique, with more news stories about Bo than other presidents typically experience about their pets. Lebovic and colleagues offer an explanation:
bq. Bo and the highly publicized quest for a White House companion for Malia and Sasha Obama represent a political high water mark for presidential pet coverage. The White House may have been compensating for Obama’s 2008 campaign promise to get his daughters a dog—a promise that previous scholarship has shown to have unintentionally drawn attention to Obama’s petlessness, thereby costing him votes among dog owners.
That is, of course, a reference to a seminal study by political scientist Diana Mutz, which Matt Corley summarizes here.
So now we know exactly what sorts of nefarious calculations lie behind the appearance of a presidential pet. And, fortunately, for American voters, this knowledge is power. Next time Obama takes a seemingly innocuous stroll with Bo, we can change the channel or turn the page and shield ourselves from this subtle attempt at manipulation. From now on, “wagging the dog” may have bark, but it won’t have bite.