Cat For Mayor

I know that there are some who might say that house cats cannot be trusted with significant political offices. To some extent, I agree with that statement. Cats are cute, but they definitely have their own agendas. Still, the town of Xalapa in eastern Mexico apparently is willing to overlook this prejudiced view of cats. A black and white cat is running for mayor of that town.

I saw the article and immediately checked it out. I thought at first that the spokescat for 9Lives was getting into the political arena. This turned out to be a different Morris (perhaps this Morris is planning to use the name recognition to his advantage), but I still found the situation interesting.

Apparently, people have been getting so sick of the politicians available that they have been nominating animals by way of protest. Morris is just one such case. The article reports that there are similar candidacies for Chon the Donkey in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Tina the Chicken in Tepic (the capital of the Pacific coast state of Nayarit), Maya the Cat in the city of Puebla, and Tintan the Dog in Oaxaca City.

To some extent this is funny, reminding me of the political sequence in Brewster’s Millions. I do think that people who are fed up have a right to show it, and this certainly does show it. However, at the same time, it’s kind of an empty protest. If the actual political officials available are that bad, this doesn’t do anything to prevent them from getting elected or to get anyone better in the race. It is a bit humiliating to the actual politicians, but it doesn’t really change much.

In the end, I’m not sure where to come down on this. I can empathize with these people; I’ve certainly felt that I sometimes just pick the best of a bad situation when voting. Still, a witty protest and nothing more just allows the situation to continue.

Oh well, at least it’s funny.