Our Fair City

"Our Fair City" is a fantasy short story by Robert A. Heinlein, originally printed in Weird Tales, January 1949. The story involves an old parking lot attendant, his pet whirlwind (named Kitten), and a muckraking newspaper columnist who decide to "clean up" their city's corrupt government by running the whirlwind for political office.

Heinlein had a cynical view of politics from his experiences on the Upton Sinclair 1934 campaign for Governor of California and his own at the receiving end of dirty tricks during Heinlein's failed 1938 election campaign for the California State Assembly. Some of these experiences surfaced in the quasi-autobiographical "A Bathroom of Her Own", an even more overtly political short story.