The Rhino Who Won an Election by a Landslide
With two of the most unpopular candidates ever, many voters are weighing a protest vote or staying home. Citizens of São Paulo once took a different approach—and elected an animal.
Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast
As the day approaches to choose between America’s two historically unpopular major party nominees, some Americans still seek an alternative.
Perhaps America’s unhappy undecideds should learn from history and write-in a Rhino: no, not a Republican in Name Only, a real rhinoceros like Cacareco. She charged ahead of a crowded field in the Sao Paolo City Council elections in 1959, earning “one of the highest totals for a local candidate in Brazil’s recent history,” The New York Times reported.
A serious impulse triggered this Brazilian charade. On October 8, 1959 in Sao Paolo, sewers were overflowing, prices were soaring, supplies of meat, beans, and voter patience were dwindling. Dismayed by the 540 candidates running for 45 council seats, some students decided, “Better elect a rhinoceros than an ass.”