And you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the rock, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it.

The inventor of the Pet Rock has died. "Gary Dahl, the man behind that scheme � described variously as a marketing genius and a genial mountebank � died on March 23 at 78."

Shouldn't that be a genial genius and a marketing mountebank?

One night in the mid-�70s, he was having a drink in Los Gatos.... The bar talk turned to pets, and to the onus of feeding, walking and cleaning up after them.

His pet, Mr. Dahl announced in a flash of bibulous inspiration, caused him no such trouble. The reason?

�I have a pet rock,� he explained.

A pet rock, Mr. Dahl quickly realized, might just have legs.

�People are so damn bored, tired of all their problems,� he told People magazine in 1975. �This takes them on a fantasy trip � you might say we�ve packaged a sense of humor.�

Meade sent me that link along with a second link, which he thinks is good material for a bloggerly riff: "Scott Walker, Allergic to Dogs, May Run Against Political History."

Jeb Bush can lament how he lost a Labrador (named for his brother Marvin) to cancer. Marco Rubio has a Shih Tzu, with a name like a gift from heaven: Manna. Ted Cruz goes one better: His rescue mutt is called Snowflake. (�Dear Jesus, please, please, PLEASE bring us a puppy,� his daughters prayed, according to Mr. Cruz�s Facebook page.) And if Mr. Walker makes it to November, he could face Hillary Rodham Clinton and her toy poodle, Tally.

Mr. Walker, who gives a gloomy stump speech filled with �worry,� perhaps could use a four-legged image softener of his own. But he is allergic to dog dander, an aide confirmed.

And in that, he is running against the long sweep of United States political history. If the ritual for presidential candidates wooing American voters had a handbook, �must love dogs� would be somewhere near the front....

Meade thinks Scott Walker could get a Pet Rock and go all Nixon....



And you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the rock, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it.