Dogfight Page 7

  Toward Ryan, he of social engineering—

  The right-wing type. (Or that’s what Newt had said—

  A quip that got him taken to the shed.)

  Paul Ryan was, as everyone agreed,

  In some ways what a guy like Mitt would need—

  A young, attractive man who’d always been

  Quite human, comfortable inside his skin.

  A natural who never seemed aloof, he

  Could chat with folks and not say something goofy.

  He’d been the darling of the tea-bag right,

  A group whose love of Mitt had been quite slight.

  Conservatives at last could now rejoice—

  Quite heartened when they heard of Romney’s choice.

  And liberals, too, thought this would just be good,

  Because the choice of Ryan likely would

  Divert the campaign spotlight’s glare

  From joblessness to things like Medicare—

  A battlefield Republicans don’t choose,

  Since it is one fight that they usually lose.

  Medicare to the Forefront

  Polls show that Medicare is now the third most vital issue of the campaign, and Paul Ryan’s plan to change it is unpopular with likely voters.

  —News reports

  Yes, any talk of Medicare

  Is almost guaranteed to scare

  A lot of voters everywhere.

  Though Medicare, in truth, has ne’er

  Been short of signs of wear and tear—

  Its funding source may need repair—

  Most folks are fierce in guarding their

  Entitlements, and they declare

  That any change would be unfair,

  Would cheat them out of their fair share.

  So politicians are aware

  There’s always risk in going there.

  They keep their distance from that snare.

  You cannot win the Croix de Guerre

  By meddling with Medicare.

  Your fate’s more likely to compare

  To agonizing mal de mer,

  A bad encounter with a bear,

  A trip to the electric chair.

  So talk of Medicare is rare,

  But Ryan’s put it in the air,

  And some Republicans despair.

  Mitt’s team, though, countered with an ad

  That said Obama’s health-care project had

  Robbed Medicare of billions, which, for sure,

  Would go right to the undeserving poor.

  Though that, in fact, was not exactly true,

  The ad had done what it was meant to do:

  The deficit on Medicare Mitt faced

  Apparently was gradually erased.

  Still, Ryan’s budget Democrats would pitch

  As taking from the poor to help the rich.

  One portrait for which liberals saw him posing:

  A banker who stays cheerful while foreclosing,

  A follower, in pictures they would paint,

  Of Ayn Rand, Gordon Gekko’s patron saint.

  Ayn Rand

  (Sung to the tune of “Blue Moon”)

  Ayn Rand,

  Because of you I’m now free.

  Because of what you have taught,

  I know it’s all about me.

  Ayn Rand,

  You taught we should be ambitious,

  And strive to be avaricious,

  Since money’s truly delicious.

  And we shouldn’t share a nickel of this money

  With citizens who can’t prevail.

  The government is not the Easter Bunny.

  The poor are weaklings who deserved to fail.

  Ayn Rand,

  Before you I was immobile.

  Because of you I now know

  That being selfish is noble.

  25.

  Money Makes the World Go Around

  The main campaign, declared those in the know,

  Was bound to cost an awful lot of dough.

  In Citizens United, the Supremes

  Had ruled (by five to four, of course) that schemes

  Called Super PACs could (sticking to a role

  Not subject to a candidate’s control)

  Spend millions to destroy his rival’s name

  And thus essentially control the game.

  Yes, buying pols, no matter what the price,

  Was simply speech—free speech, to be precise.

  By summer, Sheldon Adelson was seen

  As one iconic figure of this scene.

  Sheldon Adelson’s Free Speech

  Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is on the brink of reaching $71 million in contributions thus far in this election cycle.

  —Roll Call

  Yes, money is speech, so the Court has decreed.

  While Adelson thinks this is splendid,

  The rest of us wonder, as cash calls the tune,

  Is this what the Framers intended?

  Shel Adelson had speech more like a shout,

  With millions spent to get Obama out.

  Newt’s old enabler had upped his bet

  That, digging in the deepest pockets yet,

  He’d get a government that he could praise

  For following the wisdom of his ways.

  There had been talk that that’s precisely how

  Things worked out well for Sheldon in Macao.

  But Yanks are also willing to kowtow

  As long as they can milk a big cash cow:

  In Israel, Shel showed Mitt to his friends,

  Like showing off a new Mercedes-Benz.

  Sheldon and Mitt’s Beautiful Adventure

  So someone more hard-line than any Likudnik—

  Yes, someone who’s thought of as mostly a nudnik—

  Can show up escorting the number one guy.

  It just goes to show you what money can buy.

  And Ryan, within days of his selection,

  Flew off to Vegas to express affection

  For Adelson, who’d greatly stretched his reach

  By giving all those millions of free speech.

  And who’d step in if Sheldon should go broke?

  Those black-tie populists, the brothers Koch.

  The Democrats had fat cats of their own,

  Although the President had not been prone

  To give big donors what they’re always needing:

  Some ego stroking and much care and feeding.

  With heated words and even some derision

  He’d criticized the Super PAC decision.

  And now he’d have to sing a different song,

  And ask for cash for what he’d said was wrong.

  Because of that, perhaps, he’d been quite slow

  Approving use of Super PAC big dough.

  The analysts all said that wasn’t smart,

  Surrendering to Romney such a start.

  The super-rich would mainly fund this race,

  And some said we had now become a place

  Where billionaires decide. The only test

  Is which side can persuade them to invest.

  A Pause for Prose

  No Coordination, No Communication

  INTERVIEWER: Your Super PAC, America the Super, has now spent just over three million dollars on negative television ads attacking Art Schwartz, the most serious opponent of Jeff Gold in the race for the Senate, and—with all due respect, ma’am—that has naturally raised questions about how closely America the Super is connected to the Gold campaign.

  SUPER PAC CEO: By law, a candidate’s campaign cannot coordinate or communicate with a Super PAC. America the Super is for America being super. If that leads to calling for an investigation into whether Mr. Schwartz did any inappropriate touching when he was a scoutmaster in 1978—because a lot of those scoutmasters did, you know—so be it.

  INTERVIEWER: Well, you do understand the assumption some have that there might be more contact than the spirit of the law intends t
here to be, given your closeness with Mr. Gold.

  SUPER PAC CEO: My closeness? What do you mean by my closeness?

  INTERVIEWER: Because you’re, well, his—

  SUPER PAC CEO: Because I’m his mother?

  INTERVIEWER: Well, yes, because you’re his mother. Because you’re his mother, it’s natural for people to assume that the two of you often talk—

  SUPER PAC CEO: He never calls. He never writes.

  INTERVIWER: Well, let’s take the thirty-second ads that America the Super made accusing Mr. Schwartz of having attended a summer session at Harvard—ads that started airing the morning after Mr. Gold made the original Harvard accusation, famously brandishing a copy of Mr. Schwartz’s transcript during a television debate. Is it your contention that you and Mr. Gold did not discuss—

  SUPER PAC CEO: Discuss! Discuss! How can you discuss something with someone who never calls his own mother?

  INTERVIEWER: So you’re saying that the Super PAC runs completely independently, with no instructions from Mr. Gold?

  SUPER PAC CEO: Discuss! Discuss! I could have a heart attack—God forbid—and be lying on the floor. Supine! Do you think he’d know? He’d never know. By law, a Super PAC cannot coordinate or communicate with a candidate’s campaign.

  INTERVIEWER: And you haven’t phoned him?

  SUPER PAC CEO: I should phone and be told by some snippy little secretary that he’s busy? I should phone and be put on hold until next Tish B’ov? I should phone and be told that, by law, a Super PAC cannot coordinate or communicate with a candidate’s campaign? Please. Spare me. Let an old woman die in peace.

  INTERVIEWER: Then you’re ill?

  SUPER PAC CEO: I was speaking metaphorically.

  INTERVIEWER: But you wouldn’t deny that America the Super has done a lot for Mr. Gold’s campaign. Are some of the funders of your Super PAC expecting some quid pro quo?

  SUPER PAC CEO: Done a lot! Was sitting up half the night with him when he had chicken pox a lot? Was schlepping him to band practice all those years a lot? Do I ask for thanks? No. A mother doesn’t ask for thanks. You do for people, you do for people, and where does it get you? I’ll tell you where it gets you: No communication. No coordination. By law, a Super PAC cannot coordinate or communicate with a candidate’s campaign.

  26.

  August Surprise

  Todd Akin’s rather singular theology

  Rejected what’s in middle-school biology

  And treated basic research with defiance.

  His House committee dealt, of course, with science.

  He ran for a Missouri Senate seat

  Whose holder looked quite easy to defeat.

  But then he said, with customary piety,

  That rape, of the “legitimate” variety,

  Will rarely make one pregnant, since the shock

  Will put the reproductive works on lock.

  (This proves at least he isn’t thinking maybe

  A kindly stork is what will bring a baby.)

  Republicans, appalled, said “Todd, skiddoo!”

  Though language in a bill that they’d pushed through

  The House was close to his. Plus their right flank

  Had in the party platform placed a plank

  Against abortion, and the way they framed

  The language, there were no exceptions named.

  Paul Ryan was a sponsor of that bill—

  Which meant that Akin’s ignorance would spill

  Into the presidential race for sure.

  Republicans were braced now to endure

  A charge they’d heard a million times before:

  On women they were surely waging war.

  The Female Reproductive System

  (A lecture by Representative Todd Akin, a member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology)

  Legitimate rape will just shut the thing down.

  So if she gets pregnant, it shows that her gown

  Was cut way too low or she had on a skirt

  So tight it revealed an intention to flirt.

  In some way she wanted to show off her shape.

  And thus it was not a legitimate rape.

  Legitimate rape will stop the thing cold.

  So if she gets pregnant she might not have told

  The fellow to stop, and not be so rough—

  Or maybe she told him, but not loud enough.

  Or utterly failed to make good her escape.

  And thus it was not a legitimate rape.

  27.

  Reaching the Starting Line

  As delegates prepared for their excursions

  To Tampa, Romney faced some more diversions.

  For one, a hurricane was on its way;

  That forced the cancellation of one day.

  The winds turned west, but speakers would perform

  In TV competition with a storm.

  The Show Must Go On

  Republicans wonder how they will fare

  With Anderson Cooper not even there.

  The fervent followers of Dr. Paul

  Then staged a small kerfuffle in the hall.

  In Tampa, Mitt’s men had to have a plan,

  Some said, to somehow humanize their man.

  But Mitt would share his innermost concerns

  Around the time he showed his tax returns.

  Reveal himself? No, Mitt would not be forced;

  The humanizing had to be outsourced.

  And so Ann Romney, Mitt’s appealing bride,

  Proclaimed there was a human being inside

  This mannequin. Of this she seemed assured.

  No details, though. We’d have to take her word.

  The delegates went wild when Ryan fed

  To them much meat that was the deepest red—

  Though tainted by his facts, so checkers said.

  They said he’d lied, or certainly misled.

  Clint Eastwood’s turn on stage was so bizarre

  It was more memorable than Mitt’s by far.

  It seemed like Clint, his chair, and their vignette

  Had wandered in from some adjoining set.

  Mitt Romney asked us all to contemplate

  If we are better off than in ’08.

  Though he neglected mentioning our troops.

  (Did Perry, watching, silently say “Oops”?)

  Mitt did speak well, but still did not illumine

  The question on folks’ minds: Is this dude human?

  Calling In the Humanizer Man

  Analysts say that Romney campaign strategists face the challenge of humanizing their candidate.

  —News reports

  They’d like it if this man the folks are seeing

  Resembled more an actual human being.

  For that he’d need some warmth and schmaltz and soul;

  Then he’d appear less cut-out and more whole.

  So in their dreams of triumph they aspire

  To show that their guy bleeds and may perspire.

  This can be done at once, without delay:

  The Humanizer Man is on his way.

  Yes, any candidate with boardlike stiffness

  Can be adjusted with surprising swiftness.

  The Humanizer Man’s done this before.

  Though he fell short of loosening Al Gore,

  He’s had a host of triumphs in his day.

  So if Mitt’s men believe, to their dismay,

  Their man’s as human as a Charolais,

  It isn’t hard to make things A-OK.

  They simply need to go to him and say,

  “The Humanizer Man is on his way.”

  A few days later, pollsters would announce

  The absence of a Mitt convention bounce.

  The undecideds still would not decide;

  Essentially, the candidates were tied

  As Democrats prepared to cheer their cheers

  In Charlotte in support of “Four More Years.”

  Festivities we
re bound to start off well:

  The not-so-secret weapon was Michelle.

  She was, in polls, the most adored Obama.

  The role she seemed to revel in: First Mama.

  About her speech encomia were written.

  The Charlotte delegates were plainly smitten.

  The platform’s words, though, critics said, ignored

  Jerusalem and mentioned not the Lord.

  So missing passages were then restored,

  With machinations some saw as untoward.

  The bloggers might have made this all the rage,

  Except that night Bill Clinton took the stage.

  Addressing crowds, he somehow strikes a tone

  That seems to be for you and you alone,

  As if you two are walking arm in arm.

  He spoke with clarity, he spoke with charm,

  And what he asked that Charlotte night was whether

  You’re on your own or we’re in this together.

  Obama’s speech was good, of course, whereas

  Bill Clinton gave a speech with real pizzazz.

  Upstaged? Well, yes, but by a speech with flair,

  And not by Eastwood and an empty chair.

  Convention Bounce

  From Charlotte, Obama had hoped for a bounce.

  It came in a way unforeseen:

  When William J. Clinton had spoken his piece,

  He’d furnished a strong trampoline.

  28.

  September Surprise

  September’s job report was disappointing.

  That didn’t mean that folks were now anointing

  Mitt Romney as the President to be.

  In fact, the pundits all agreed that he

  Had lots of work to do to crack the code

  That might yet make the White House his abode.

  The polls on Medicare had now adjusted;

  They showed the Democrats again more trusted,

  And Medicare, the pollsters soon found out

  Was something voters truly cared about.