could not get elected dogcatcher

US, 1880s.

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could not get elected dogcatcher

1. (idiomatic, chiefly US, politics) Said of someone of unpopular status, particularly of politicians.
   • 1889, Weekly Courier Journal (Louisville, Kentucky):

     [president Grover Cleveland is] so unpopular in Washington that he could not be elected dog catcher for the district.

   • 1922, J. W. Scroogs, The City Manager Plan, page 60:

     A man who wears kid gloves and a plug hat couldn't be elected dog catcher in any town in Oklahoma.

   • 2007, Robert Ludlum, The Bancroft Strategy, page 348:

     Men like him couldn't get elected dogcatcher. He was a natural lieutenant, not a leader, and it was a fact he accepted with neither bitterness nor regret.

Dogcatcher is virtually never an elected office; the phrase is hyperbole, using dogcatcher to indicate “the most lowly conceivable office”.

• run like a dry creek

• Dog Race: Is Dogcatcher Actually an Elective Office?, Christopher Beam, Slate.com, Nov. 5, 2010