Rep. Paul Broun Jr, Charles Darwin, and Stubbs the Cat

In April 1997, the current mayor of a small 'town' in southern Alaska was born, and three months later he became mayor of that town.

Talkeetna, Alaska is only recognized as a town by the U.S. Census with a population of 900, and the town itself is really a historical district of Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska. Talkeetna, which is en route to Mount McKinley, has a mayor; a cat named Stubbs.

Stubbs, after what -must- have been
 a long day at the office.

Stubbs was adopted by Lauri Stec, who is the manager of Nagley's General Store in Talkeenta, when Stubbs' former owners were giving away kittens (including Stubbs himself). Lauri chose him because he did not have a tail. Stubbs' first mayoral election in which he was a write-in candidate, after people were unsatisfied with the human candidates, was a successful write-in campaign. He won, and assumed office on July 18, 1997, is still mayor of the town, and has the distinction of being the current longest-serving mayor in Alaska.

As cute as that story is, Charles Darwin, (yes, THAT Charles Darwin) despite being deceased, could apparently learn something about being elected to office from Stubbs.

Yes. This happened.

U.S. Representative Dr. Paul Broun Jr. (R) of Georgia's 10th congressional district has served since a special election in 2007, and was the only person on the ballot in this year's election. He won, but did not receive a substantial number of the votes cast in this election. Charles Darwin, who has been dead for 130 years, received what can only be called a 'lot of votes' as a write-in candidate; at least about 4,000 that were counted, although they don't count in the official voting count. All 4,000 of these counted votes came from Athens-Clarke County, which is one of the larger areas in Georgia's 10th congressional district. The 10th district had a large number of write-in candidates that weren't Charles Darwin too, including Big Bird, and an individual named 'Anyone But Broun'. The only write-in candidate that actually campaigned was Brian Russell Brown of Augusta, who received 200 votes.

Charles Darwin, circa 1868.

Dr. Paul Broun's opposition campaign came mostly from citizens who disagreed with him on evolution, which Broun called a lie "straight from the pit of Hell"; however, Broun is one of the most polarizing figures in the House of Representatives beyond that. Broun attempted to scare his constituents into thinking the federal government is trying to force us to eat fruits and vegetables. Broun claims to be a 'strict constitutionalist,' and runs constantly on the idea that if the Constitution doesn't say it, we don't need it. Broun's voting record, however, constantly contradicts that idea, himself voting with Republicans in the House 86% of the time, whether a measure is allowed through a literal interpretation of the Constitution or not, and often enough, there is no interpretation, literal or not, which would justify the bills he votes on.

Dr. Paul Broun Jr.

Dr. Broun is such a polarizing figure that a sitting county Republican Party chair within Broun's district (who will go unnamed because I assumed the conversation was private) apologized to me for Broun being in office, and called him an 'idiot.'

That's way harsh, but I think the harsher thing is that a dead person, even one as celebrated as Charles Darwin, can receive a measurable percentage of votes from the county where a sitting congressperson grew up. Not counting provisional ballots, 40,631 ballots were cast in Athens-Clarke County and of those voters, 16,996 of them voted for Dr. Broun. We don't know just from the released results how many people filled out a ballot and then abstained from voting in this race, but what we do know is that Darwin's numbers were not insignificant in light of this. At least one in 10 voters in Athens-Clarke County would vote for a dead guy over the incumbent Dr. Broun.

Perhaps if the Democrats put up a person whose heart is actually beating two years from now, I'll be able to write a goodbye blog detailing Dr. Broun's funniest moments, especially since in races where there were Republicans and Democrats -both- on the ballot, the Democrat tended to win in Athens-Clarke County. President Obama won Athens-Clarke County by a 29-point margin. My friend Tim Riley beat incumbent Republican Frank Ginn in Athens-Clarke County by a 26-point margin. Spencer Frye won by a 41-point margin. A Democrat who runs up his or her margin of victory in Athens could have a shot at winning the whole district overall.

Until such a time, I have to choose to place my faith in Stubbs the cat, or the third coming of Darwin, and as great as they both are, I don't like their chances. Yes, that's right. I am one of Dr. Paul Broun's constituents, and I too received write-in votes in this election, although I don't know if race was one of them.