In a campaign stop in the crucial swing state of Michigan, Gore made it clear that he was prepared to make the canine-release controversy a central issue in the waning days of Campaign 2000. “During the last six years in Texas, many dogs have been let out–on Governor Bush’s watch,” Gore told a partisan crowd at a Dearborn middle school. “I call on Governor Bush to answer this question, honestly and completely: who let the dogs out?”
Governor Bush, campaigning in Gore’s home state of Tennessee, was quick to dispute the Vice President’s accusations. “I want to say to my opponent, come down to Texas and see what’s been going on,” Bush told a gathering of supporters at a Chattanooga truck stop. “We haven’t been letting dogs out, we’ve been cutting taxes and executing folks.”
There is some dispute as to how many dogs have been let out during Governor Bush’s tenure as the chief executive of the state of Texas. Republican officials say that the total is no more than one dozen, while sources close to the Gore campaign say that the number could be as high as 1,000.
“Regardless of the number, we strongly feel that the American people are entitled to know who, exactly, let the dogs out,” says one Gore campaign official.
While Bush campaign insiders privately complain that the Gore camp is playing politics with the dog-letting-out issue, preliminary poll results suggest that the strategy may be paying off with the group for whom this latest appeal is intended: undecided voters. A scientific survey of more than 1,200 undecided voters named Gore over Bush, 48% to 41%, as being “less likely, as President, to let the dogs out.”
