Like Bailey Warren, I Will Be Eating My Way to a Better America

From ELLE

Bailey Warren, extremely good dog, has refused to concede the race for the White House. While his owner, Senator Elizabeth Warren, ended her campaign for president with the same passion, intelligence, and grace with which she ran, Bailey has taken the surprising and delightful approach of aggressive resistance and, like all good things, it started with a hearty meal. Mere hours after Warren called her team to inform them that she was suspending her run, staffer Gabrielle Farrell posted a video to Twitter showing the aftermath of Bailey stealing someone's burrito and taking a huge bite out of it. For freedom! In the footage, you can see people crowding around the recalcitrant dog, its mouth overflowing with the cheese of justice.

And yes, I did write the cheese of justice, which is exactly how Josh Lyman would describe it as he got fired up and all in his head about the incident in a stirring speech on The West Wing. And what is "candidate's dog refuses to give up (on burrito)" if not a classic West Wing subplot. CJ is tangled up in a leash, trying to barter with the dog while Josh pontificates and frantically calls out for Donna to help him pry the dog's mouth open. Toby is leaning against a doorway, muttering random asides about presidential dogs and the remarkable jaw strength of Golden Retrievers and laying the groundwork for some larger metaphor that will conclude in a Bartlett speech later in the episode. The metaphor is about seeking out the thing that you want, that every part of your being, and history, and very nature drives you toward. Diving into rivers and bursting through brush to find it and, when you finally grab hold of it, never letting it go! And at that moment, Barlett bursts through the door and says—

Oh, excuse me. I'm getting a call from Warren. Bailey Warren. One moment, please.

Okay, I'm back. What a great chat! Bailey, mouth full still—inspirational—offered a little insight into the moment. "I quite enjoyed your little West Wing fanfic," he said between chews. "Alas, dear boy, this is not a television show. This is real life. And the erstwhile Josh Lyman is now a villain in The Handmaid's Tale and Get Out, which is a think piece waiting to happen. But I do not have the time nor the opposable thumbs to write it. And so I chew. No, not chew, chomp. To feed myself! To free myself! To express myself! The burrito, my sweet summer child, is not a metaphor." Here he paused and I was about to interject with my muddled human thoughts when he spoke up again. "Except, perhaps a metaphor for this nation. Perhaps we are not a melting pot but a burrito. And we act as if we are isolated ingredients, able to self-segregate and protect our own, while continuing to prop up the fortunes of companies and CEOS that do not care about us. But is the chicken tinga able to self-segregate from the guac in a burrito?! NO! In this essay, I will..." Here he let out a guffaw. "I'm just kidding with you. I was starving is the thing. But the whole burrito concept is something to think about. Noodle over it. Put some sauce on those noodles. Slurp them up. You know, get wild. Make it meme. Go nuts."

I asked Bailey about the moment on The Rachel Maddow Show when he again made the world his literal oyster and took a bite out of Maddow's questions.

Bailey sighed. "Am I an agent of a chaos or am I the growling stomach of the nation, hungry for change, starved with the malnutrition of misinformation, clearing the shelves of the grocery store of truth?!" He laughed again. "Just kidding. I was hungry again. What a long day of being pet, being walked around, and refusing to capitulate."

Speaking of that refusal, I asked Bailey about having to be carried out of campaign headquarters.

"Oh, that was definitely a protest," Bailey remarked. "Yes, I was staging a sit-in. I am hungry, but I am also angry. I'm hangry, if you will. That's a term I just made up. And sometimes when you're hangry you have to sit in your feelings and gobble them up or jog at a brisk pace whilst wearing a brightly colored sports coat. And sometimes you have to act. And in that moment I chose to act. I locked my knees and I looked the staffers in the eyes and I said, 'Not one more inch will I give!'"

I asked Bailey what was next for him. Would he be throwing his support behind other dogs in this race? Bailey sighed. "I really don't think you understand. I am still in this race. My humans can do whatever they want. And the humans that like my humans, they can work it out, too. And no one, not one person, should shame them for that. I have my own plans. I am taking it to the streets. And by that I mean I am going for a walk and then maybe lunch. We'll see. The promise of the future is a buffet and I'm famished."

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