When I lived in Oregon, I did quite a number of cartoons about OR-7, the peripatetic lupine lonelyheart. After awhile, this wolf started to take on a personality all his own, and I was just along for the ride/wander. I even did a poster and bumper sticker for a joke OR-7 presidential campaign. Apparently quite a number of people took this joke seriously in Oregon, because OR-7, I was reliably told off the record, had received a lot (hundreds) of write-in votes in Portland alone.
Hundreds. For president of the United States. The job that controls The Football with the nuclear codes.
So last Sunday, I proposed, in a cartoon, that Sutter Brown (the only dog I am aware of with what appears to be not only a legal last name, but a politically potent last name) run for Lt. Governor of California.
@SutterBrown on Twitter then repeated this joke (#howowuldyoufeelifyouweregavin), and then I started Facebooking about it, as well as tweeting.
I am truly afraid that these little gags go very much awry, and people who have taken the time to get a ballot then would throw it away on Sutter.
Now, don't get me wrong. Sutter has many fine attributes for a Lt. Governor, such as nice teeth and beautiful hair. And we also know since there doesn't seem to a fixed job description other than be alive when the incumbent governor isn't, certainly Sutter would fit right in.
I can also tell you that Oregon doesn't have a Lt. Governor. The Oregon Secretary of State is second in line of succession. But she does have one critical qualification anyone in California politics would like to possess.
Her name is Kate Brown.
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Jack Ohman joined The Sacramento Bee in 2013. He previously worked at the Oregonian, the Detroit Free Press and the Columbus Dispatch. His work is syndicated to more than 200 newspapers by Tribune Media Services. Jack has won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Scripps Foundation Award, the national SPJ Award, the National Headliner Award, the Overseas Press Club Award, and he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 and the Herblock Prize in 2013. He has written and illustrated 10 books, many of them about fly fishing. Jack has three grown children.
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