Why Mayoral Run by Michigan Pig Isn't Just for Giggles

Giggles “is a sweet and intelligent animal – which is more than can be said for some candidates,” claims Flint attorney Michael Ewing, the man behind a pig’s write-in candidacy for the city’s mayor. (Photo via Facebook)

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A pig is running for mayor in Michigan.

No, seriously.

And though voters in Flint will have a chance to write in Giggles’ name to run the city, her candidacy is no laughing matter, says a local defense attorney, Michael Ewing.

Ewing explained on the “Giggles the Pig for Flint Mayor“ Facebook page that he thinks Flint politics are pretty much a pigsty. He said a convicted murderer announced his candidacy for mayor, and another candidate recently convicted of driving drunk and in the wrong direction (with three flat tires) has been kicked out of council meetings “because he cannot behave himself.”

But the final straw was a ballot snafu that meant no candidates would be listed on the August primary ballot. The Flint Journal/MLive.com said the city clerk gave candidates the wrong date for filing nomination petitions, rendering them invalid without court intervention.

“We couldn’t even get a simple election right,” Ewing wrote on Facebook. “And not even an election really – just the nominations. And yet we assure the State of Michigan that we are ready to govern our own finances – a task assuredly more complicated than filing petitions to run for office.”

Flint had been under emergency management since 2011, but Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder declared the end of the long-troubled city’s financial emergency last month with state approval of a $7 million loan to eliminate the city’s budget deficit.

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The birthplace of General Motors, Flint once had a population of 200,000, but now only about half as many people – and a pig – live there. It is also one of America’s most dangerous small cities, and a major center for the sex trade in Michigan.

With such a dark recent history, Ewing thinks Giggles’ time has come.

“I hope that you will vote for her as a mayoral candidate who has never murdered a human,” he wrote. “She has never placed citizens in harm by driving drunk on the highway, and has never interrupted public business and public meetings. She is a sweet and intelligent animal – which is more than can be said for some candidates.”

Giggles isn’t the first animal to run for public office. At least 13 animals – dogs, cats and even a beer-drinking donkey – have been on the ballot. And Flint native Michael Moore, who got his filmmaking start with the documentary “Roger & Me” on General Motors’ exit from the city, sponsored a campaign in which a potted Ficus plant ran for Congress in New Jersey.

Some people commenting on Facebook think Giggles should run for governor, or maybe even president.

Now that she’s in the public eye, another commenter offered some helpful advice:

“Don’t forget your lipstick.”