What every presidential candidate needs

Clementine logged onto Facebook and scrolled through her news feed. There were two new posts from Slinky Longfellow, a fellow cat and FB friend from Pennsylvania, a story from Charlene Butterbean, an internet celebrity cat, about her trip to the vet to have her teeth cleaned and dozens of reposts from her followers about presidential candidates. A few of those posts extolled the virtues of the poster's preferred candidate, but most of them were simply smear campaigns against a candidate the poster opposed.

Since Clementine had actually met all of the candidates she read the posts with a good deal of skepticism. No, Ted Cruz does not eat babies for breakfast. At least on the road, he eats McDonald's egg white breakfast sandwiches. And no, Hillary Clinton is not auditioning for The Voice next season whether or not she wins the election. She can't carry a tune to save her life. And again no, Donald Trump is not planning to build a wall around Washington DC. He's planning on building a wall the entire length of the US/Mexico border.

The one thing that was obvious from her time on the road meeting the candidates was that they were very stressed people. Ben Carson had been the most mellow of all of the candidates, and the only one to actually pick Clementine up and spend time scratching her head and feeling her purr. By the time he put her down, he was genuinely smiling.

The conclusion was obvious. The presidential candidates needed cats. She'd written to all of them to thank them for taking time to meet her, and had suggested to each of them that they add a cat to their campaign entourage. The responses she'd received were not positive. They ranged from explanations that staffers were allergic to cats to concerns about litter boxes and the ventilation system of their airplanes.

It was a bit disappointing that none of the candidates were interested in taking a cat on the road, but as Clementine thought more about the problem it occurred to her that the whoever won the election, his or her stress wasn't going to decrease once he/she entered the White House. It would increase. Congress would still likely be deadlocked, whichever party lost would be likely be petty and criticize every word out of the new president's mouth and the media would be hovering like vultures waiting for something to pounce on.

Clem knew from her interviews that none of the candidates had cats. A few had dogs, and likely those dogs would come to Washington, but that didn't preclude there being a First Cat. Not if was a cat who could jump onto the desk in the Oval Office when things got tense defuse the tension with purrs and headbutts. Not just any cat would do for that job. It had to be a cat with a strong purr, one that was a snuggler, but yet not too needy. Lots of cats would probably like to live in the White House. Heck, Clem would, except that it would mean leaving her beloved yarn lady.

The more she thought about it, the better the idea seemed. She talked it over with Zeke, and he agreed that it would be a cushy job, one that many cats would jump at. Clem giggled at that. Jump at. Cats would pounce at an opportunity like this. But how would something like that be decided? An ad on Craig's list? There would be no way the new president would be able to read through all the responses.

Then it hit her. There should be an election for the First Cat. Maybe she could even get it on the ballot for November. Oh, there was a lot of thinking to be done about this.