Will Mitt's dog cost him the presidency?

I'm prepared to be convinced that what Romney did was cruel to his dog, but I haven't heard anything convincing yet. Rather, to me this argument is virtually a paradigm of why I'm inclined to vote for Romney - and for Republicans generally - rather than Democrats. Democratic attacks on Republican sexual prudery notwithstanding, the Democrats are the ones I usually find chomping at the bit to assert some new control over an individual's - or community's - rights of self determination, from seat belts of drivers driving alone in their cars to parental rights to advise their minor daughters regarding abortions.

Romney was doing something the dog liked; though what he did was in no sense scientifically tested, Romney didn't just run off and engage in reckless behavior, he made trial runs that overcame what were his initial reservations about the safety of putting the crate w/ the dog on the car roof. Just as is usually the case, Democrats have clustered their opinions into a facsimile of a standard under which Romney's behavior would constitute Cruelty to Animals, and are running around desperately seeking credentialed talking heads to validate their position, a task that has been complicated by the President's admission in his autobiography that he ate dogs.

Well, good. Maybe we'll get an honest public opinion as to whether we're better off being basically allowed to make our own decisions, or whether what we do with our pets, our property, and our family is to be continuously subjected to judgment by some "National Uh-Oh Squad".