If you voted in D.C. Tuesday, you might have seen a silent, stumbly cardboard velociraptor roaming the streets.
In its first public appearance Tuesday evening at Dunbar High School, DCDino joined the effort to get out the vote.
The creature caused quite a stir among young and old canvassers alike.
“They certainly command some attention,” said Karen Cotton Gross, a project manager at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who’s lived in the neighborhood for about twenty years. “I think there should be dinos all over the place.”
DCDino wags its tail during its first night out to encourage local humans to vote.
“That big googly eye is cool,” said Ayana, a 10-year-old who was canvassing for ANC commissioner candidate Bertha Holliday.
Her friend Taylor, also 10, said she might vote for the DCDino — if her age and its species allowed — under one condition. “If I knew that it would talk, probably yes.”
By press time, the DCDino had not given endorsements nor expressed a desire to run for office.
DCDino is actually quite harmless and even a bit shy. “Dino’s a good listener,” said friend Elle Cayabyab Gitlin.
Still, the apolitical beast had a message. “DCDino’s definitely pro-statehood, pro-voting,” said Elle Cayabyab Gitlin, an IT consultant in online education who described herself as a “friend of the dino.”
In an exclusive interview with Technical.ly D.C., DCDino revealed that it is owned by a 20-person cooperative and took about 36 hours to assemble. It is genderless, sexless and raceless and aspires to become “a manifestation that can just be loved.”
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