Dogfight (6 page)
Authors: Calvin Trillin
Two Attempts to Explain the Resurrection of Newt Gingrich
I
Yes, Newt appeared dead at least twice.
If Mitt’s guys were playing it smart,
They would have made certain of that
By driving a stake through his heart.
II
But Newt might have said, if they had,
Proceed, Mitt. You’ll see I won’t mind it.
You’re free to drive stakes through my heart,
Except that you’ll first have to find it.
So now, because of one man’s intervention,
A free-for-all could last through the convention.
The party leaders, who had hoped to see
Smooth sailing to select their nominee,
Now wondered why they’d all been so delighted
With what came out of Citizens United.
Anybody Out There Want to Be President?
The party’s old establishment was stunned
To see that Mitt by Newt had been outgunned.
Their horror at the thought of Gingrich grew;
For fall, the Newtster simply wouldn’t do.
And thus the party’s pooh-bahs’ breath was bated,
In hopes they’d get Mitt rehabilitated
In Florida, which many of them guessed
Would prove to be the most important test.
The pooh-bahs called in all their reinforcements
To furnish Mitt with dazzling endorsements.
For every stalwart heaping Mitt with praise
Another one recalled with groans Newt’s days
As Speaker, and said Newt as nominee
Meant losing Congress—that they’d guarantee.
Mitt Romney Responds to a Rude Awakening
I thought it was done. I thought I had won.
I felt my campaign on a roll.
But that wasn’t true. Some say that I’m through.
They say what I’m lacking is soul.
But I can adapt. At that I’ve been apt.
I’ll have much more soul than Gauguin.
We’ll buy it or rent or simply invent.
My staff’s coming up with a plan.
The base, though, thought no matter how you try
To change Mitt he could never be their guy.
They simply saw no way you could adjust him
Enough to make it possible to trust him.
How could you trust a man who once had said he
Was, when it came to gays, far left of Teddy?
As governor he’d sold as quite ideal
The very health plan he would now repeal.
He spoke the lines. He played his right-wing part.
But, still, they wondered, is it from the heart?
They also thought that it would be quixotic
To nominate a man quite that robotic.
They said, “We wonder if a plea, a prayer, a wish’ll
Produce someone who’s less, well, artificial.”
Yes, even prior to Newt’s stunning spurt,
Republicans were willing to assert
That they considered it an awful shame
That better players wouldn’t play the game.
Wisdom from On High
Mitch Daniels should jump in, Bill Kristol cries.
That’s what
The Weekly Standard
would advise.
Though at this stage this comes as a surprise,
Bill gave us Palin, so he must be wise.
They clung to hoping someone who’d declined
To run might be convinced to change his mind.
They thought that Jeb or Daniels or Paul Ryan
Or Christie could defeat that faux Hawaiian.
Some right-wing flesh and blood was what they sought,
But all their desperate efforts were for naught.
Despite their plaintive pleas, their prayers, their scolding,
They had to play the hand that they were holding.
Desperate Entreaties
On knees they plead, with both eyes misty,
For Ryan, Daniels, Bush, or Christie.
They pray into the race they’ll push
Chris Christie, Ryan, Mitch, or Bush.
They see the party led to Zion
By Christie, Daniels, Bush, or Ryan.
They can’t believe that this is it.
Can it be true they’re stuck with Mitt?
Then Florida damped down this white-knight talk,
For Romney won, and won it in a walk.
He captured nearly half of all votes cast.
Some thought Mitt Romney had Big Mo at last.
And Newt? His message failed to resonate,
And he’d seemed somewhat passive in debate.
The Newt campaign could not gain any traction,
Not even with the right-wing tea-bag faction.
Despite a second hit of Sheldon’s jack,
Newt couldn’t match Mitt’s negative attack.
When he complained Mitt’s crowd was out of line, he
Increasingly could sound a little whiny.
What worried those who’d put their hopes on Newt
Was that he might run out of Sheldon’s loot.
Such worries in the Mitt camp were unknown:
Mitt had a bunch of Sheldons of his own.
Unstuck?
Was Florida to be Mitt Romney’s peak?
His dominance had lasted one short week.
In February, on a single day,
Three votes were held, and none went Romney’s way.
Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado
Had cast on Romney’s men a cheerless shadow,
Just when they’d thought the Mittster might break free.
A single candidate had won all three
State caucuses, which caused Mitt’s team to fret
That once again they faced a serious threat.
The victories that now made Mitt’s men wary
Were won by Rick—Santorum, not Rick Perry.
Rick’s prospects from the start had not been great.
His win in Iowa had come too late
To change the view from early in the season
That he was plodding on for no good reason.
He’d lost his Senate seat in quite a rout.
He lacked big bucks, and when he spoke about
Morality, his holy tone suggested
The Boy Scout in your troop whom you detested.
The sweater vests he wore were sometimes mocked.
But one group thought that Rick Santorum rocked:
The right-wing-social-issues-Christian crowd
Loved Rick, and from the start said they were proud
That what you heard when he gave campaign speeches
Was what you got: he lives the life he preaches.
He goes to church. His kids are schooled at home.
Unlike so many pols, he doesn’t roam.
They liked it that those vests were not designer.
They liked it that his grandpa was a miner.
They saw a true believer in Santorum.
(His family they saw as ad valorem.)
Abortion of all kinds, of course, he’d banish.
He’d like both birth control and gays to vanish.
He thinks our nation’s founders from the start
Had not meant church and state to be apart.
What JFK would have us all believe
On church and state, Rick said, just made him heave.
The problem that Rick’s fandom faced had been
They couldn’t see a way that he could win.
Santorum, dogged man in sweater vests,
Had now won fully half of all the tests.
So now they started thinking that he could
Bring victory for purity and good.
We Pick Rick
(A Santorum campaign song, sung to the tune of “We Like Ike,” by Irving Berlin)
We pick Rick.
Yes, Rick’s with whom we will stick.
He’s the guy
All over whom we’re swarming.
We pick Rick.
Though some imply he’s a hick.
He well knows
There is no global warming.
He’ll say on CNN
The sins that we must smother.
And he can keep those men
From marrying each other.
We pick Rick
’Cause he’ll tell liberals real quick
What God says
No matter if they’re willing:
Abortion’s baby killing.
So we pick Rick.
Some flare-ups of the ancient culture wars
Helped Rick put on the board those stunning scores.
When contraception funding raised a row,
The average voter had to wonder how
Some people at this stage still didn’t know
That this was settled fifty years ago.
But some Rick voters thought—make no mistake—
That freedom of religion was at stake,
That sacred values might be cast aside.
A war on women, Democrats replied,
Was what the right wing now was waging.
And soon, of course, the two sides were engaging
In fights on who was truly church defender
And who oppressor of the female gender.
Contraception (of All Things)
Republicans are bashing birth control,
As candidates far-rightward scurry.
The voters haven’t heard such talk in years.
We’re going backwards in a hurry.
Rick Santorum Takes a Turn at Homeschooling
The Santorum children were relieved to hear their father announce that the next hour would be devoted to American history. They were tired of talking about sex all the time. That morning’s biology lesson had been about how contraception can cause diseases such as St. Vitus Dance and Housemaid’s Knee. Two separate field trips that week had been to the worst slums in Washington, in order to demonstrate how sex for purposes other than procreation will almost invariably lead to drug addiction, depravity, poverty, and homelessness. In the third hour of the second trip, while being shown how drunken derelicts were driven to look for food in a dumpster, little Kevin Santorum had looked up to his father and said, “Why can’t we take field trips to the water treatment plant like other kids?”
Beginning the American history lesson, Senator Santorum said, “The framers of our Constitution, such as Thomas Jefferson, were Christians who had no intention of driving people of faith from the public square. They did not intend the United States to have absolute separation of church and state. As we learned in Personal Health class earlier this week, absolute separation of church and state can make a person want to throw up.”
Kevin raised his hand and was recognized by his father. “My friend Timmy Burnside says that Thomas Jefferson was in favor
of what he called a wall separating church and state,” Kevin said. “Timmy says that ‘separation of church and state’ is actually Jefferson’s term. That’s what Timmy says.”
For a while, Senator Santorum said nothing, but his expression was stern. His cheeks had grown flushed. Kevin, made uneasy by the silence, decided to break it with another question: “So, did Thomas Jefferson throw up all the time?”
Their father still hadn’t spoken. He looked angry. Finally, he said, “Timmy is inhabited by Satan.”
“Timmy Burnside?” Kevin said.
“Yes, Timmy Burnside.”
“The Timmy Burnside who lives down the street?”
“That’s right,” Senator Santorum said. “I don’t want you to play with Timmy Burnside anymore.”
“But Dad,” Kevin said. “Timmy Burnside has a Wii with both Mario Super Sluggers and Madden NFL 12—my two favorite games.”
“Those whom Satan would inhabit he first tempts,” the Senator said.
“So then could we get Mario Super Sluggers and Madden NFL 12 for our Wii?” Kevin asked.
“Absolutely not,” Senator Santorum said. “In fact, there will be no more playing with the Wii. We’re giving away the Wii. It is Satan’s tool and is thus unclean to the touch.”