In the Strange World of Politics

I generally do not do postings of a political nature, but I'm making an exception with this posting.  Yes, the presidential campaign in the US is heating up and is on a lot of people's minds, but this is a report of a different campaign--one for the mayor of Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

Apparently one of the popular candidates for the mayor's office is a cat named Tuxedo Stan--yes, you read that correctly:  a cat. The candidate is quite popular, already having over 2300 friends on Facebook.  And yes, his handlers are raising funds for his candidacy.  They do state that all funds raised will be used for spaying and neutering cats in Halifax.  Now here is the interesting part--there is a municipal law in Halifax that actually and specifically bans animals from holding office.

Okay, someone please explain to me why any municipality anywhere on earth might need to put into effect a specific law that bans animals from holding political office.  Are there really that many animals that in the past made a decision to run for such offices, and so the law was established?  Go ahead, someone give me one concrete example of an animal that willfully and consciously decided on its own that municipal office holding was what it wanted. 

I know there has been a lot of discussion both in the past and now about whether or not our elected officials are really doing a good job.  Do they truly understand what is important to us or do they spend far too much time bogged down in passing laws that are counter intuitive and don't provide much or any benefit to us.  Obviously some of those elected officials in Halifax had time on their hands and so this strange municipal animal office holder ban law was passed.

Of course, this is not really the strangest part of the story.  It appears that Alaska does not have such a law on its books, and the mayor for the past 15 years of Takeetna, Alaska is a cat known as Mayor Stubbs.  People were not pleased with the candidates for mayor 15 years ago and so voters were encouraged to elect Stubbs as a write-in candidate, and yes, he won.

"Because Talkeetna is a "historical district," the mayoral post is more symbolic than functional, said Andi Manning, president of the Talkeetna Chamber of Commerce."  Right, and I don't care quite how symbolic that job might be--there is a town of 900 residents whose mayor is a cat.

When I passed on this information to a friend, first she laughed and then she said that maybe what we need is just this kind of candidate running in our local elections.  She said she wouldn't choose a cat because politicians are quite "catty" already, and more of that isn't needed.  She did, however, mention that she wouldn't object to a dog's running for office, since so much of politics is already a "dog-eat-dog" undertaking.  Her feeling was that at least a canine would have a legitimate reason for behaving in this manner.

All this just might give you an inkling of why I normally don't write about politics.