Authors: Calvin Trillin
Dogfight (4 page)
The Far Right Considers the Republican Front-runner
It seems that now we’re stuck with Mitt.
Reciting right-wing holy writ,
He still sounds moderate, a bit.
Although it’s nothing he’ll admit,
A health-care plan’s his biggest hit.
(The thought of that gives us a fit.)
And born-agains, from where they sit,
Still state their firm belief, to wit:
As Christians, Mormons aren’t legit.
We’ve said for months, “This man’s not it.”
We wish that Palin hadn’t split.
We wish that Perry weren’t a nit.
(His pilot light is not quite lit.)
Because, it seems, we’re stuck with Mitt.
But then, although no voting had occurred,
The order of the also-rans was stirred.
Some entertaining answers in debate
Had led Republicans to contemplate
That Herman Cain was someone they should rate
As now, perhaps, a serious candidate.
His goals before seemed simply to be these:
To have some fun and boost his speaking fees.
Like others, he said taxes should be flat,
But Cain’s entire platform seemed just that.
He said we could relax. We’d all be fine
If we could just remember Nine Nine Nine.
An Inaugural Address for Herman Cain
In April, we’ll all be relaxed—
All spending dough that wasn’t taxed,
With Nine Nine Nine.
To working folks we’ll bring enjoyment,
’Cause we’ll have nearly full employment,
With Nine Nine Nine.
Our air will be pristine and clear,
And terrorists will disappear,
With Nine Nine Nine.
And scientists will find the answer
That gives the world a cure for cancer,
With Nine Nine Nine.
We’ll all achieve what we endeavor,
And all of us will live forever,
With Nine Nine Nine.
A country that now seems depressed and limp’ll
Be great again if we just keep things simple.
Although his patter in debates could tickle,
Cain’s pool of knowledge seemed less pool than trickle.
Some questions seemed to cause his speech to vanish,
As if the questioner had asked in Spanish.
(On Libya, his silence caused a buzz:
One couldn’t tell if he knew what it was.)
His ignorance, which was at times sublime,
Made Perry look like Kennan in his prime.
He never had held office in the past.
His staff was neither deep nor quick nor vast.
He spent much time, reporters kept on noting,
Promoting books in states that were not voting.
An old harassment charge had come to light.
(Cain, saying it was false, was not contrite.)
By then, as Perry’s star began to fade,
Election analysts were quite dismayed
To read what they had never thought they’d read:
The Herminator now was in the lead.
The Pundits Contemplate Herman Cain
I
We’ve spent a month of this campaign
In trying daily to explain
The steady rise of Herman Cain.
Through willingness to risk a strain
In every muscle of the brain,
We’ve laid out all we think germane
To help the public ascertain
Why Cain consistently can gain
(Despite, some charge, a moral stain)
Support that doesn’t seem to wane
No matter how we all complain
That thinking voters might ordain
For Cain a four-year White House reign
Is truly—to be blunt—insane.
II
So far, our work has been in vain.
His ignorance is not what did him in.
No, Cain’s campaign was sabotaged by sin.
Complaints of Herman making intramural
Advances, it came out, were in the plural.
Outside the office he’d been naughty, too.
The final straw, which hastened his adieu,
Although this, too, the candidate denied:
He’d had a little something on the side.
Cain’s numbers in the polls began to slip.
Then Herman Cain withdrew. He’d been a blip.
The interest in him now had run its course,
Except to see which horse he might endorse.
Lamentations of the Late-Night Comics
While Jimmy Fallon tears his hair,
Bill Maher laments, “It’s just not fair.”
Dave Letterman begins to pout.
They’ve heard that Herman Cain is out.
In common with his late-night peers,
Jon Stewart comes quite close to tears.
He’d much prefer a case of gout
To hearing Herman Cain is out.
“The man is threatening our jobs,”
Says Leno, as he softly sobs.
From Colbert tears begin to spout.
He’s heard that Herman Cain is out.
They pray together, on their knees:
“Could we have Donald Trump back—please?”
Newt Redux
Cain’s nod might go to Gingrich, it was said.
Yes, Gingrich, who had once been left for dead.
Improbably, he’d lived to fight again—
A star on Fox and even CNN.
Debating, Gingrich pleased the hard-right bloc—
They thought that he would clean Obama’s clock—
Although the more religious folks all thought he
Had, very much like Cain, been awfully naughty.
(Both wives Newt cheated on and left were sick;
He’d shown the moral standards of a tick.)
By colleagues in the House Newt had been branded:
He’d been the only Speaker reprimanded.
He’d always found consistency constricting—
A man about whom there was no predicting.
So instantly the pooh-bahs fairly shouted
That choosing Newt could get the party routed.
Who knew if everyone had heard the last
Embarrassment in such a checkered past?
What lunacy could possibly induce
The folks to choose a cannon quite that loose?
With all his faults, which backers would admit,
Newt’s great appeal was this: He wasn’t Mitt.
Newt’s Surge
The people who want anyone but Mitt
Now say, in desperation, Newt is it.
Yes, Newt’s astute—a crafty wheeler-dealer.
His baggage, though, would fill an eighteen-wheeler.
Republicans who knew Newt from the House
Might call reporters whom they knew and grouse
About how lame as Speaker Gingrich was,
But, still, the grassroots voters were abuzz
With sharp debating points that he would score
And how he won the House in ’94.
They loved it when he dissed the mainstream media
While spewing facts—a live encyclopedia.
They loved it when quite eloquent he’d wax
Or wound poor Mitt with shrewd, sarcastic cracks.
They brushed off all the right-wing commentariat,
Which treated Newt like Judas—yes, Iscariot!
(“Vainglorious,” said Will. To be concise,
The Joe of
Morning Joe
said, Newt’s not nice.)
“A brawler’s what we want,” the folks would cheer.
“A guy who’ll gouge and maybe bite an ear.
The hatred of Obama that we’ve felt
Needs someone who will hit below the belt.
Our animus requires someone bad—
No matter if he’s sleazy or a cad.”
New Hampshire’s largest paper had provided
A lift for Newt, with whose campaign it sided.
So now the polls produced another stunner,
With Newt, the fourth un-Mitt to be front-runner.
As he passed Mitt in polls, Newt said that he
Was confident he’d be the nominee.
Like Churchill or De Gaulle, he had been called.
The men who run the party were appalled.
The Perils of the Front-runner in a Horse Race
Though Romney was leading right out of the gate,
He’s also a guy some conservatives hate.
But all other entries they managed to find
Were scratched from the start or have fallen behind.
So now they’ve decided that Newt is a whiz—
The horse that they’re backing, corrupt as he is.
Thus Gingrich, now galloping (though he’s quite husky),
May make Romney look like the late Edmund Muskie.
Callista Gingrich, Aware That Her Husband Has Cheated On and Then Left Two Wives Who Had Serious Illnesses, Tries Desperately to Make Light of a Bad Cough
Newt looked into the room where Callista had been trying to nap. “I don’t like the sound of that cough,” he said.
“What cough is that?” Callista replied. At that moment, she felt a cough coming on, but she managed to suppress it, emitting instead an extended beeping sound.
“The cough that’s kept you in bed for the past three days,” Newt said.
“It’s just a little cold, Newt,” Callista said. “I feel fine. Look at my hair; it’s still perfectly in place. This couldn’t be anything serious.”
“I don’t know about that,” Newt said. “I hear there’s a lot of dengue fever going around.” He walked to the nightstand to get the thermometer.
“I’m sure that I don’t have dengue fever, Newt,” Callista said. “A cough is not associated with dengue fever. I haven’t had the high fever. I haven’t had the characteristic rash.”
Newt paused as Callista, trying desperately not to cough, made a sound that suggested a motorbike that won’t start. “Why is it that you know so much about dengue fever?” he
asked. “Do you have reason to believe that you have dengue fever?”
“Newt,” Callista said. There was a seriousness in her tone that made him stop short.
“Newt,” she repeated. “You wouldn’t leave me if I had dengue fever, would you? It’s not a life-threatening illness.”
“Well, in certain cases, complications can lead to … ” Newt let the sentence hang.
“Newt,” Callista said, in that same serious tone. “Have you found another?”
Newt looked offended. “I am appalled that you would have the nerve to ask me that question. Asking that question is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.”
“‘Close to!’” Callista said, sitting up in bed so abruptly that a single strand of her hair dislodged itself with a crack and fell over her forehead. “Did you say ‘close to’? Have you been cheating on me, Newt?”
“I am leaving you, Callista,” Newt said. “I have found another. I am converting to her religion—Swedenborgianism.”
“You’re leaving me for a Swedenborgian because you think I may have dengue fever? You’re leaving a sick wife for the third time? You’re converting for the third time? Won’t those evangelical wackos you’re trying to appeal to think that—”
“No, they won’t,” Newt said, cutting her off. “It turns out that they don’t care at all.” As he strode from the room, he heard the sound of loud coughing.
Carpet Bombing
In Iowa, the caucuses unfold
In weather that’s invariably cold.
To listen to long speeches is your duty.
And getting there could freeze off your patootie.
The voters who are willing to go through
This process tend to be those Christians who
Are quite convinced that Jesus wants them to;
To them the caucus seat’s another pew.
On social issues these folks are the crew
To whose views candidates must tightly hew.
Those views are views that candidates rehearse
So they don’t stray from chapter or from verse.
Though Hawkeye demographics weren’t Mitt’s best,
The caucuses were deemed a worthwhile test.
But with that test not many weeks away,
The un-Mitt Newton Gingrich still held sway.
Debates, though, were where Gingrich had excelled;
As caucus time approached, debates weren’t held,
So Newt no longer was the grand enchanter,
With show-off smart remarks and flashy banter.
Then Romney’s PACs put into gear their plan,
And carpet-bombing ads on Newt began.
They searched out every way that Newt was sleazy.
With Newt, of course, that sort of search was easy.
His influence, ads said, had been for sale;
He’d cashed in on a monumental scale.
One focus of the ads’ sustained attack
Was money he’d received from Freddie Mac.