Dogfight Page 4

  “This is Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,” Hollande said.

  Chancellor Merkel looked somewhat taken aback at being mistaken for Hollande’s aunt. When she had regained her composure, she said to President Romney, “I know you will have much to add on the question of the debt crisis in the euro zone, Mr. President.”

  President Romney looked the German chancellor up and down. “I’d say you’d go about one-forty, give or take five pounds,” he said. “Am I in the ballpark?”

  Chancellor Merkel, hoping she might have misunderstood the President, said, “I believe the future of the euro will dominate our discussions in the coming days.”

  “The city that has more bridges than any other city in the world is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,” President Romney said. “Congratulations.”

  “Congratulations to Pittsburgh?” Chancellor Merkel asked.

  President Romney thought for a moment. “No,” he said. “Just congratulations.”

  Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, joined the group and introduced himself to President Romney.

  “Are you of French Canadian origin?” President Romney said.

  “No, I’m not,” the Prime Minister replied. “But I am Canadian.”

  “The state stone of Michigan is the Petoskey stone,” the President said. Then, spotting a gentleman standing a few feet away, he asked, “Are you of French Canadian origin?”

  “No, I am David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,” the man said.

  President Romney looked at Cameron and then at Harper and then at Cameron again. “Brothers?” he said. “Cousins? Uncle and aunt?”

  “No,” Cameron said.

  At that point, the group was joined by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, of Japan. He and President Romney were introduced. “What are you—around fifty-five or sixty?” the President asked. “Am I close?”

  “I am fifty-six years of age,” the Japanese Prime Minister said, rather formally.

  “Yoshihiko sounds French Canadian,” the President said. “I don’t suppose you’re of French Canadian origin, are you?”

  “No, I am not,” the Prime Minister said.

  “Congratulations,” the President replied. “Saul Rogovin, of the Detroit Tigers, hit a grand-slam home run in 1950, and it wasn’t until 2008 that another Jewish pitcher hit a grand-slam home run.”

  “Congratulations,” Chancellor Merkel said.

  “Yes,” the others murmured. “Congratulations.”

  12.

  Unstuck

  So from New Hampshire, Mitt left bruised and battered.

  But, still, he’d won—won big—and that’s what mattered.

  The polls in Carolina showed that he

  Was on his way to winning number three.

  And Newt? The Newtster’d finished fourth again.

  He couldn’t capture one vote out of ten.

  Mitt’s team had thought that lack of cash might mean

  That Newt would now retire from the scene.

  That might have taken place except for this:

  Newt through the years was not at all remiss

  At cultivating wealthy people who

  Might share with him a certain point of view,

  And, conscious of the favors he might render,

  Might also share some serious legal tender.

  One Sheldon Adelson found in his heart

  The urge to share five million as a start.

  (The gambling dens he’d managed to expand

  Had given him a lot of cash on hand.)

  Adelson

  (Sung by Newt Gingrich supporters to the tune of “Edelweiss,” from The Sound of Music)

  Adelson, Adelson,

  Your donations do cheer him.

  We who root

  For our Newt

  Smile whenever you schmeer him.

  Absent your vow

  That you would endow

  Newt, despite his clay feet,

  Adelson, Adelson,

  Newt would be back on K Street.

  On this there was no way to be mistaken:

  Shel Adelson had saved the Newtster’s bacon.

  So Gingrich, fattened up with Sheldon’s cash,

  Became the candidate who liked to trash

  Poor Mitt for everything he’d done at Bain

  That caused those simple working people pain.

  Mitt called such talk a weapon of the left.

  Then he himself increased the issue’s heft

  When asked about his tax returns by saying

  He’d rather not reveal what he’d been paying.

  When finally he then released just one,

  The damage, self-inflicted, had been done.

  The Adelson donations had borne fruit:

  A double-digit victory for Newt.

  The certainty of Mitt had been debunked.

  He hadn’t just been beaten; he’d been skunked.

  From Iowa, another bubble’d burst:

  A recount showed Santorum finished first.

  So Mitt had not won three tests in a row,

  But one, which left a long, long row to hoe.

  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.

  13.

  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.

  14.

  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.

  A Pause for Prose

  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 Heal
th 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.”

  There was an audible groan from the children. “Leave it to Kevin to ruin everything,” one of the older kids whispered to his sister. “He should know that it’s always safer to talk about sex.”

  15.

  Carpet Bombing Redux

  What happens when a threat to Mitt arrives?

  The Mitt campaign calls out B-25s.

  The bombs begin. And there is rarely trouble