Note: Due to other obligations, we can't do the Q & A today, but puppygate is too big to hold until tomorrow, so we'll go with that today. Back to normal tomorow.

With One Bullet, Noem Shoots Her Puppy in the Head and Herself in the Foot

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who will do (almost?) anything to be Donald Trump's running mate, has a new book out, No Going Back. In it, she describes a hunting trip she went on with her puppy, Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehair pointer. Cricket was a bit wild, and Noem thought that encouraging her to kill pheasants would calm her down. Cricket didn't do a good job. She scared all the birds away. On the way home, she jumped out of Noem's truck and attacked a local family's chickens and killed a number of them. She tried to stop the puppy but Cricket bit her. Noem was embarrassed, paid the farmer for the chickens, took the dog home, and shot her. Then Noem shot a goat that liked to chase her children. Later she shot three of her elderly horses.

Look at all the red meat here:

• Noem is a hunter.
• She likes dogs.
• She owns a truck.
• She's a good markswoman (except taking the goat down took two shots).
• When her puppy does something bad, she owns up to it and pays for the damage it caused.
• She can make tough decisions when it is necessary (like shooting her own puppy).
• She is unemotional about shooting horses that have been in her family for 25 years.

What a tough woman! Boy could she kick the sh*t out of Xi Jinping if Trump sent her to China. And her shooting exploits get her in the news again. Donald, Pick me! Pick me, please!

We're not sure if this ploy is a good idea. There are millions of people in America who love their pets. The DNC has already called her shooting her animals "horrifying" and "disturbing." The Lincoln Project already has this ad up. It's a killer. Watch the first 30 seconds at least.

Conservatives weren't happy with Noem either. Sarah Matthews, a former Trump aide said: "When I saw tweets about Kristi Noem murdering her puppy, I thought to myself: 'Damn, one of the other VP contenders' teams found some oppo,' until I realized SHE wrote about it in HER book." A whole new concept in politics: auto-oppo.

Maybe all the animals deserved to be put down, but most dog, goat, and horse lovers faced with the task would probably do it with a heavy heart. They wouldn't brag about it in their autobiography. But for Trump, having the guts to shoot defenseless animals is a feature, not a bug. Show them who's boss! After all, with Trump, cruelty is a whole point of it. How are the other women running for veep going to match that? The district of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) borders Canada. Maybe she could shoot a moose from a helicopter. If another contestant, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), crushes a palmetto bug (also known as a "stinking cockroach") between her fingers she might win the contest, since few people raise cockroaches as pets.

This whole incident suggests that Noem has a tin ear. She should have realized that shooting your puppy in the head was not going to play in Peoria. Well, it didn't. Will this disqualify her? Trump has his own criteria and it might not, but his campaign staff might now be thinking that Noem makes Sarah Palin look good.

Puppygate has just exploded. It's everywhere, for example:

• Democrats, Political Figures Dogpile onto Trump VP Hopeful after Story of Animal Killings (WaPo)
• Kristi Noem Dogged by Poor Polling Amid Fallout from Tale of Killing Puppy (The Guardian)
• Dems, GOP Bash Kristi Noem for Shooting Her Dog (Politico)
• South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem Writes about Killing Her Dog in New Book (CBS)
• Trump VP Contender Kristi Noem Faces Backlash After Admitting to Killing Her Dog (Time)

Noem wanted some PR and got it in spades, but not exactly what she had in mind. This put her instantly into damage-control mode:

• South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem Defends Book Excerpt Where She Describes Killing Dog and Goat (CNN)
• Where's Cricket? Don't Ask. Kristi Noem Defends Killing Her Dog (NYT)
• South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem Defends Shooting Family Dog That Was "Untrainable." (USA Today)
• Trump VP Contender Kristi Noem Responds to Backlash over Story about Killing Her Dog (NPR)
• South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem Defends Executing 14-Month-Old Dog in a Gravel Pit (NY Daily News)

For the Democrats, this story is actually bad news. It is possible that it has moved Noem way down on Trump's short list. She would actually have been the ideal running mate (from the Democrats' point of view). First of all, she brings nothing to the ticket. Well, maybe they could have carried South Dakota by 40 points, instead of the mere 26 points in 2020. Otherwise, she adds nothing that "Generic Woman" would not have brought to it.

Second, there is a persistent rumor that Noem had an affair with Trump's close associate Corey Lewandowski. If true, presumably she did this in the hope of Lewandowski's telling Trump how good Noem is ... at governing. If Trump picks her, every investigative reporter in D.C. will discover the hard way that there are no nonstop flights between DCA, IAD or BWI and Pierre, S.D. You have to change planes in Denver. Then every motelkeeper in South Dakota would have been besieged by reporters looking for a story. Even if no actual story came out, the hunt would have itself become a story. And if some sleazy motelkeeper wanted his 15 minutes of fame, well, even though the National Enquirer has unfortunately lost its Pecker, it still buys lurid stories, true or not.

Not since Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) went on a road trip with his dog, Seamus, in a box strapped to the roof of his car has there been so much canine-political news. (V)

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