The United States’ frogs appear to be shrugging off a biologically insensitive comment yesterday by U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. According to ABC News, Senator Clinton used the aphorism, “you can’t tell how far a frog will jump until you punch him,” to describe the resolve of her campaign.
Even when reminded that the candidate mentioned boiling frogs on New Year’s Day (with video) in a speech in Iowa — on the same day that kicked off “the year of the frog“ to draw attention to the amphibian mass-extinction crisis – frogs say they hold no grudge. They cite the reservoir of good will on environmental issues such as clean water that Senator Clinton has built up over the years. Clean water is a core value of the amphibian constituency.
Of course, amphibians have been mentioned before in this presidential race. There is a Web site that uses a cartoon frog to encourage us to place the candidates in a blender.
U.S. frogs have historically shown great patience during such campaigns — unlike the temperament of amphibian species in other parts of the world. Politicians rarely mention frogs in speeches in Cameroon, for example, where the wolverine frog is known to whip out claw-like bones from under its skin when annoyed.