For Bears, California Recalls Are the Perfect Circus

A recall candidate hired a bear to draw attention to his campaign to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom, but the bear ended up drawing attention to the bear.

SACRAMENTO — He was new to politics but a working actor who has shared the screen with Kevin Costner. He posed. He swaggered. He did not obviously beg for the rotisserie chicken. He publicly refrained from his two favorite offstage habits, flatulence and belching, although at one point he did wash himself with his tongue as the cameras rolled. Under a broiling Sacramento sun, Tag — a half-ton bear hired as a stunt by one of the Republicans hoping to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom of California in a likely fall recall election — hit all his marks in front of a campaign bus on Tuesday before heading home to Kern County in time for a dip and a nap. By Thursday, editorial boards were fretting, a state senator was fuming, animal rights groups were calling for formal investigations and the Republican candidate who hired the bear, John Cox, was fending off questions about whether his rented mascot had been exploited.