Finally, one or two people who actually like my idea of a political party for the rest of us responded to my post on the subject. And Paul DeMarco even gave serious thought to my question of what sort of animal should symbolize our party. I was impressed that he came up with one that was actually high on my own list: the owl. As he put it, the owl is "Quiet, wise, but no-nonsense and a swift and skillful predator when the need arises."

Good idea. I’m not ready to settle on it, but it’s a good start.

Of course, as surely as we will hear stories of the Pilgrims and Squanto on this day, we had an item in the paper reminding us that Benjamin Franklin advocated the wild turkey as our national symbol. I think he was serious about that one, but you never know; ol’ Ben was a bit of a raconteur, and may have been sending us up.

On the subject of birds, I had already thought about the one that won out over the turkey. The bald eagle would be ideal in some ways. First, it would say we align ourselves with the nation itself, rather than with any ideological segment. Also, the traditional rendition of it, grasping the arrows with one foot and the olive branch with the other, would say that on the federal level at least, we concern ourselves with the main business of the national government — our conduct with other nations. (Yes, I know it’s supposed to regulate interstate commerce and such, but one thing I want to do is distance ourselves from some of the sillier battles that the donkeys and the elephants have over domestic Kulturkampf issues that aren’t properly any of the federal government’s business — such as manger scenes in town squares, and comatose patients in Florida.)

In some ways, though, the eagle is limited. For one thing, it always looks fierce. I like the idea of a mascot that can look fierce when it needs to, but the eagle doesn’t seem capable of any other expression. Also — and this will seem silly, but remember that I work every day with a cartoonist for a living — I can’t see the eagle working well in political cartoons. Maybe that’s just because I haven’t seen it done enough yet. Robert Ariail could most likely anthropomorphize the noble bird into characters just as hilariously human as his donkeys and elephants, but I have trouble picturing it.

Maybe we should look beyond birds. Birds are good, given that the United States is the world’s first and greatest air power, and our party would be open to the judicious use of that power. But as I think on cartoons — and we need to be open to being lampooned — I’m thinking four feet might work better.

Of course, you can come up with an objection to almost any symbol:

• The Owl: Never available in the light of day. Too close an association with Hooters.
• The Turkey: Essentially American, and admirable in many ways (very tasty, for instance), but too ugly and ungainly — not to mention that "turkey" has unfortunately come to be a putdown in modern slang.
• The Eagle: Drawbacks listed above. One other: Too obvious.
• The Bull Moose: Already taken, and proven to be electorally unsuccessful, even with a strong candidate.
• The Bison: VERY American, but too, well, bovine. Any animal that’s so easy to creep up on and kill in such large numbers to the point that you have to make special efforts to keep it from going extinct is problematic (ditto the eagle, come to think of it).
• The Lion: Not indigenous, and too associated with royalty. We could go with the cougar, but I’m just not a cat person. I like dogs.
• The Dog:  Noble, loyal, friendly but willing and able to tear your head off if you mean to do ill to anyone or anything that it has taken under its protection. Note that I’m not talking Chihuahuas or French poodles, but real dogs — preferably a big mutt (symbolizing the melting pot), with some retriever, some setter, some shepherd, some chow, and some plain old hound dog. Probably can’t be a yaller dog, because that would be encroaching on the Democrats’ territory, and it is too suggestive of blind party loyalty, which we would abhor.

And there are other drawbacks to the dog — for instance, the fact that it would make us an object of contempt among Arabs and some other cultures, and we’ve got enough problems over there as things stand. But the dog has promise.

Ultimately, I remain stuck on this one. I guess, once we get this party organized (but not too organized, because that would be unlike us; we should strike a good medium between the Democrats and Republicans on that point), we’ll have to send this issue to our Critter Committee.

Or, we could just leave it to the cartoonists to come up with their own way of symbolizing us. They’ll do that anyway, unless we propose one that they find irresistible.

Anyway, enjoy your turkey today. And think no political thoughts while doing so, but remember to thank the One from whom all such blessings flow.

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