Who let the dogs out? Nicolas Sarkozy's slick campaign team prides itself on flooding the airwaves with quick and cutting punditry on the opposition's latest efforts. The day after Ségolène Royal's star turn on the "I Have a Question For You" TV program last week, Sarkozy's team sprang into action. His campaign scheduled no fewer than ten interviews on radio and TV. Seven Sarkozy representatives were deployed on six radio stations and four TV channels. Even a classical-music station had a rep on hand.

Sarkozy spokeswoman Rachida Dati, the woman of the bunch, took on the heaviest schedule, with news radio at 7:40 am, French-Arab radio at 6:30 pm, and talk radio at ten after midnight. With his staff panning Royal at length, Sarkozy could allow himself a pithy wry appraisal: "Compassion is not a policy; imprecision is not a strategy." That line has been echoing ever since, and sometimes presented as an original observation. Sarkozy man Brice Hortefeux told a community radio station yesterday, "I observe that Ségolène Royal's only policy is compassion and her only strategy imprecision."

Photo of Sarkozy graffiti by Eric Pape