Original photo via Hank for Senate
The owners, er, campaign managers, of a Maine coon in Northern Virginia who waged a write-in campaign for U.S. Senate this year, are claiming a third-place finish of nearly 7,000 votes. Hank the Cat, the independent, tie-wearing furball from Springfield, netted far fewer votes than Democratic Senator-elect Tim Kaine and Republican former Sen. George Allen, but apparently collected an overwhelming majority of the write-in votes counted so far.
Anthony Roberts, who calls himself Hank’s equivalent of Karl Rove (pre-Fox News meltdown), says he and Hank’s other owner, Matthew O’Leary, are contacting precincts across the commonwealth to find out just how many Virginians were willing to stake their upper-chamber representation on a feline. The Virgina Board of Elections does not report individual write-in votes, but as of this writing, it had counted 7,319 write-ins out of nearly 3.7 million votes cast in the Senate race.
Kaine’s and Allen’s vote totals are separated by only 180,000 votes, more than enough to make sure that Hank did not serve as a spoiler, but still close enough to make the cat’s vote total something considerable.
On election day, Roberts says he and O’Leary spent 12 hours outside polling place hoping to win some last-minute Hank fans, with some friends doing the same in other precincts. In addition to a steady stream of emails, Facebook updates and tweets, the Hank camp waged the largest get-out-the-vote effort it could. Not exactly the sweeping ground game of President Obama’s re-election campaign or the labor union volunteers bused in to push Kaine over the top, but, still, not bad for a cat.
As for the candidate. “Hank himself was sleeping,” Roberts says.
But the reception from voters entering the polling places was mostly positive or bemused, he adds. “The only ones who had any flack were the Republican volunteers. As they were handing out sample ballots they had some choice words for us.”
Though perhaps the Republicans shouldn’t have groused so much; Roberts says Hank likely took votes from both Kaine and Allen. Still, by night’s end, Kaine had been declared the winner well before any counting of write-in and absentee ballots commenced. “Hank certainly understood it,” Roberts.
Of course, we’re talking about two guys who goofed on a bitterly waged Senate race by promoting their pet cat as a potential candidate. Did Virginia voters really want to be represented by Hank? Hardly. But the Hank campaign still did plenty of good.
“Regardless of the votes, we still raised $60,000 for animal rescue,” Roberts says. “There are literally going to be lives that are saved with that. From our personal point of view we got to share our kitty with the entire world, and that’s really great.”
Among the groups that Hank for Senate will be turning its campaign receipts over to are Four Paws, Animal Allies, the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, and a Russian animal welfare organization selected by Svetlana Petrova, a St. Petersburg-based artist who designed a series of mock two-dollar bills featuring Hank’s catty visage.
As for the official candidates, Roberts says that Hank for Senate approached both Kaine’s and Allen’s camps with pledges to support animal rescue organizations if elected. Neither responded, and Roberts thinks it could have given them a real boost in the polls, perhaps even rendering his cat’s campaign irrelevant.
“If they had, it would have been free press and there would have been a pull-ahead from one of them,” Roberts says. Instead, as many as 7,000 Virginians deserted the major parties and voted for Hank.
