ANZA, Calif. — Opie the goat charmed his way out of the slaughterhouse, but he wasn't as nimble in the gruff world of desert politics.
The goat was named honorary mayor of this rural Riverside County town after drumming up more money for charity than anybody else. But like any office-holder, he wasn't without enemies.
Local business leaders, fearing that Opie made the more than 5,000 townsfolk look like yokels, decided he had to go. Opie's supporters kicked back, and the ensuing fracas divided the growing town.
"Opie stands for why so many people moved out here," said Nancy Ross, a stylist at Anza Barber & Beauty. "We don't want some human sitting on a throne."
With his foray into public service, Opie had joined a select number of four-legged mammals ascending to small-town higher office.
Voters have elected goats, donkeys and dogs to honorary mayor positions in recent years -- almost exclusively in sparsely populated communities where a barnyard politician can reel in dollars from curious tourists.
Near Colorado Springs, Colo., the town of Florissant elected a donkey named Birdie in a charity ballot that benefited the Pikes Peak Historical Society.
"We decided to have a little truth in politics: We'd only have jackasses run," said society president Celinda Kaelin.
Paco Bell, the current mayor, won a second term in 2004 after one opponent got sick, another didn't show, and a third, a llama with pasted-on ears, was booted because it didn't meet the jackass standard.
Some folks in Rabbit Hash, Ky., blanched at the election of a dog named Goofy in 1998, wondering if this speck of a town near the Ohio border would look foolish.
But the mixed-breed dog's victory raised at least $9,000 -- one vote, one dollar -- leading a filmmaker to record a documentary called "Rabbit Hash: The Center of the Universe," which screened at a Pennsylvania film festival.
Rabbit Hash, whose official population fluctuates between three and five people, revived the race during the last presidential election after Goofy was euthanized, choosing a black Lab named Junior.
"You have to have a sense of humor down here, I guess, to beat everyone else to the punch of making fun of us," said Sue Clare, secretary of the local historical society, which used the second race's proceeds to preserve the town's general store, barn and other wooden buildings.
