Of Small Varmints, Comma, If You Will

David Von Drehle writes in with a scene from a Romney rally:

A candidate never knows, when inviting questions from the audience, what might come up. In one of the last Q&As of the long New Hampshire campaign, Mitt Romney was asked what he would do, as president, about the pet population crisis. "I was pretty well-briefed for last night's debate," Romney answered, "but that one didn't come up."

He bunted the curve ball by using the question to explain his approach to problems generally. The hugely successful management consultant talked about the importance of accurate data and thorough exploration of every viable alternative. Not the usual Washington way of handling things, he said--where the solutions come bbefore the data and discussions dissolve into finger-pointing.

Romney, who ran into trouble earlier in the campaign when he talked about strapping the family dog in a crate on the roof of the car, took pains to add just how deeply his clan aches at the thought of suffering animals--"especially my wife." Not just dogs and cats, but "guinea pigs ... and gerbils," too.

Gerbils. Romneytron 3000 is completest.

UPDATE: A tipster provides a visual.