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What To Do When The Cat Candidate Makes Sense

by Joseph D. Lyons

If making America great again sounds like a huge ordeal and potentially racist, consider making it meow instead. That's right, there's another choice for president for those of you who really, really haven't connected with any of the human options. Limberbutt McCubbins, a cat, is running for president, The Washington Post reported. You heard that right. A cat.

Perhaps it's a sign of the political discourse in the country, or it's the choice that all the undecided voters have been holding out for. After all, no two candidates could be less alike than Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. So if neither of them suit you, another species might be the only answer. Plus, this cat "has a kind heart and fierce loyalty to America."

Of course, Limberbutt isn't planning his own campaign, and he might not even be aware of his run. The cat's owner, Emilee McCubbins, and her high school friend Isaac Weiss started the campaign as a joke. But then it took off, and the media started paying attention. So they embraced it and registered him with the Federal Election Commission. Now he has nearly 13,000 Facebook likes on his official page.

But there's more to his candidacy than just a joke. McCubbins and Weiss have some ideals to get across, too. They're both studying U.S. politics at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Here's what's up with the more serious campaign, Weiss explains to The Post:

Emilee and I realized that we could have an impact on this election and that we had an audience to listen to our ideas on our modern democracy.

Neither want you to actually vote for the cat. They want you to listen to what they have to say. And there's plenty of that. The "campaign managers" have been posting to Facebook and Twitter, commenting on the debates and the general discontent of the electorate. In a post Wednesday, the Limberbutt 2016 Facebook account challenged its followers to take another look at a positions' quiz to see which candidate they align with:

I like to think that we all grow and change as we learn. That means that you've hopefully learned and grown over the course of this election cycle. So if you took this quiz the first time I posted it, you might try again and see if you've changed. Remember, a growth mindset is a good thing.

So the end game is definitely not electing the cat, even if for some that's quite a laugh. The Twitter account posts get-out-the vote memes and messages, many featuring cats with the hashtags #meowisthetime and #yourvotematters. Another tweet reads, "Don't forget to vote, I hear my followers complain about politicians, but don't hold them accountable every two years."

So in the end, their message tries to resonate with the displeased among us. "I would argue that people today have become fed up with the two-party system,” Weiss told The Post. “Limberbutt, for them, is an outlet to voice their frustrations and have a political discussion with a true outsider and hopeful Washington fat cat.”

But even if the campaign managers are unhappy with the two-party system, they still have a preference between Clinton and Trump — or so it would seem reading their Twitter. "It's nice to see @realDonaldTrump isn't sexist or racist.... Oh, my bad I was wrong! #Debates2016." So feel free to like that cat, but make sure you also vote. Ideally, I'd argue, for an actual candidate.