Coates: Candidates fight like cats and dogs in this election

Kids voted the dogs in at Casa Grande’s two public libraries, Main and Vista Grande. Voting started Nov. 1 and concluded on Nov. 8, Election Day. Dogs and cats, by all accounts, ran well-run and positive campaigns.

Each side gave its best pitch in a video posted on the library’s Facebook page. Youth Librarian Julie Martinez narrated. She and her colleague, Youth Librarian David Brown, had a hand in producing the puppet campaign spots. They worked the puppets and spoke on their behalf.

Dogs promised kids to “catch a million Frisbees,” as well as any leftover vegetables. Cats promised to sunbathe and rid the library of spiders and mosquitoes. Clearly, dogs had the better message.

Each candidate promoted books for kids. Dogs promised more dog books. Cats promised more cat books.

There were two write-in votes. One for a chicken. The other for a liger, a lion-tiger combo. You’d need a pretty big litter box for a liger.

The winners get the best picture-book displays. So dog books will be front and center, practically nipping at your ankles. As I understand it, the dogs voted to lock the cat books in the basement. But that would be tantamount to censorship, and libraries don’t do censorship. So cat books will be available, too.

For dog books, “Go, Dog, Go” is a classic. All the dogs are going to a dog party. A big dog party.

I looked up a few other titles in the library’s catalog. I came across “Puppy Bus.” Who wouldn’t want to ride the puppy bus? Here, a boy boards the puppy bus by accident. He thinks it’s his school bus. But he learns he’s on the puppy bus, headed for puppy school!

In the cat category, “Catstronauts” is a series about “an elite group of cat astronauts.” It’s by the “Puppy Bus” author and illustrator.

Cats think they’re so smart. The puppies still get my vote.

I didn’t set out for the Main Library to write about the nailbiter between cats and dogs. That came about by a chance encounter with Martinez. I really planned to ask people about real elections. The kind where insults are hurled, invective is rife and messages are misleading. At times unbearable and nearly always unavoidable.

And so I asked. It was last Thursday. The polls were closed. The votes were in, even as the counting continued. I didn’t ask people how they voted. I asked: Isn’t it a relief it’s over? Isn’t it nice to watch TV or go online without being assaulted by political ads?

Sure, it’s America. Candidates, PACs and super PACs are allowed by law to spend gobs of money to get your vote. That’s called freedom of speech.

Still, Kathy Miller of Casa Grande could have done with a little less of it. The paid advertisements and the political commentary.

“You get tired of all the bad commercials on TV, and all the spin doctors who talk about it all day,” she said.

Of course, spending gobs of money requires collecting gobs of money. Miller got a few texts or emails asking for hers. She’s a Republican. I’m a registered Democrat, but I know the feeling. Somehow I ended up on a Democrats’ donor list. I don’t donate to politicians or campaigns or political parties. My wife has. I guess they had me down as a fresh mark.

My inbox was flooded with pleas for money, often for races far from home. In battleground states. Often begging. Sometimes bullying. One said something like: “William, we haven’t heard from you! We’re putting you down as a Republican!”

I wonder if anybody threatened to turn Miller into a Democrat.

Now, it’s a new day. The election’s over, for the most part. The flood has slowed to a swift current. There’s still the Georgia Senate race to be decided.

It didn’t matter to Joseph Pineda of Maricopa. He’s tuned out all the noise. He has his own politics to promote. He stood behind a small table outside the Main Library. He was collecting signatures for a different movement, No Labels. It seeks to bring the two warring sides together.

“We’re just tired of them not solving any problems,” Pineda said.

With enough signatures, he said, No Labels could run a third-party candidate for president in 2024. A unity candidate. Sounds like a moon shot.

Inside the library, I came upon Jan and Duane Furnish. Jan is a retired school teacher. Duane is a retired rocket scientist. He knows about moon shots. He helped develop the Saturn V rocket engine that sent Neil Armstrong to the moon.

Jan was the more talkative of the two.

“I do like politics,” she said.

But she doesn’t like the tone of the campaign ads jamming the airwaves. Ads by either party.

“They’re both so hard to listen to now. It’s been really discouraging.”

She and Duane have drifted away from commercial TV, in any case. They watch streaming channels that don’t have commercials. Mostly murder mysteries on BritBox and Acorn. I watch them, too. There are lots of stabbings. But it’s fictional and less disturbing than grainy hatchet jobs on political opponents.

But enough about Republicans and Democrats. Dogs win, cats lose!

All aboard the Puppy Bus!

———