This week, those of us in the United States have been focused on the election. No matter who you voted for, at this point, many of us involved in rescue have been thinking about where the President Elect is going to get his family dog.
I've had a number of people email me and say, "you have to make sure the Obamas adopt from a rescue." Obviously, I can't make anyone do anything, but I have to tell you the support is out there! As many of you know, Best Friends Animal Society put together a petition and got 50,000 people who encouraged the Obamas to adopt their dog: http://www.obamafamilydog.com/. On September 30th, Michelle Obama said they had decided to adopt a rescue dog.
Yesterday, there was an article in the New York Times about it: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/the-search-for-the-first-puppy/.
When I looked this afternoon, there were more than 500 comments posted. Now there are more 869 (35 pages) of comments and it looks like they finally closed it out. The bottom line is that a huge amount of people are interested in seeing the Obamas adopt their dog. Just the fact that the issue has come up at all is a huge step forward for rescue.
As I pointed out in my comment, it would be nice to have the Obamas start off right by keeping their word. There are far too many broken promises in politics after all. Obama was elected by people who voted for change. Honesty in politics would be a nice change ;-)