A Tennessee man who lost his pet raccoon after a video of him showering with his other raccoon went viral on YouTube is running for governor in order to get back his faithful companion.

Mark “Coonrippy” Brown will take on Governor Bill Haslam in the Republican primary this August in a bid that he hopes will get Rebekah away from state wildlife officials and back into his arms.


"This is all about the raccoon," Brown said.

The 55-year-old claims that a permit request he sent to Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officials went unanswered and that a petition he sent to Gov. Haslam with over 60,000 signatures was returned to him without ever being opened.

"Gov. Haslam ignored the cries from the entire United States," Brown said. "He can free prisoners, he can pardon people, but he refused the online petition and refused to accept the letter. All eyes were on Tennessee and it made us look bad. It made it look like we were under Caesar's law."

With his gubernatorial run, Brown aspires to "expose the people in office who are not for the people."

Brown declared for the race on Friday, the first day candidates could pick up petitions.

"We've got to take this country back one state at a time," he said. "We live in the United States of the Offended -- not the United States of America."

[YouTube] [WBIR]