Dogfight Read online

  As weak and ineffective were now fine.

  Romney Beats His Swords into Plowshares

  Mitt seemed to agree with Obama a lot.

  Divergence in policy got hard to spot.

  He used all the moderate words he could muster.

  So where was the Mittster’s past neocon bluster?

  He knew that those still undecided would hate it.

  The answer then is that the Etch A Sketch ate it.

  Though he had lost, the Mittster didn’t trip

  In managing to execute this flip.

  He’d done, some theorized, what needed doing:

  Assured the folks that he’d not be pursuing

  Some aims that could bring war without cessation—

  The aims he’d backed to get the nomination.

  And so, with only two short weeks to go,

  Mitt had, he claimed incessantly, Big Mo.

  Reporters went along, though some then noted

  That states where some folks had already voted

  And battlegrounds that Mitt would surely need

  Still showed Obama with a narrow lead.

  Mitt did make progress with the gender gap—

  But then some ally’d open up his yap

  And show, as middle-road as Mitt might seem,

  The views of those who backed him were extreme.

  Three Republican Candidates Discourse on the Subject of Rape

  (And a fourth remains exceedingly quiet)

  Legitimate rape, so we’re told by Todd Akin,

  Will not produce children but simply awaken

  Defensive biology. That quickly locks

  The system all down, just as safe as Fort Knox.

  Joe Walsh says exceptions for “life of the mother”

  Are phony exceptions, just like all the other

  Exceptions suggested. Walsh says it’s all jive,

  Since doctors can always keep momma alive.

  Now Mourdock says rapists’ seed must be defended.

  A pity, he says, but it’s what God intended.

  This absolute stance to which Mourdock still cleaves

  Just happens to be what Paul Ryan believes.

  The Rape Science Three can provide more reminders

  That now Mitt’s got wingnuts in all of those binders.

  Whatever Mitt might confidently say,

  That narrow lead had still not gone away.

  But Mitt’s men said what polls did not reveal

  Was what their people had, and that was zeal.

  33.

  The Stretch of the Stretch

  Ten days from being pictured in the booth,

  Barack and Mitt were at it nail and tooth—

  So many ads in swing states, crude or clever,

  That voters started saying, “Sure. Whatever.”

  Mitt’s strategy had not remained a riddle:

  The newest Mitt was easing toward the middle.

  With independent voters always wary

  Of candidates who seem the least bit scary,

  Mitt turned the right-wing volume down, which led

  To his forgetting many things he’d said

  While, running for the nomination, he

  Had tried to suit his Party to a Tea.

  Conservative? Well, sort of, but not nearly

  What some (say, Mitt himself) had called severely.

  Mitt Romney Beats His Plowshares into Feather Dusters

  In Dwindling Days of the Race, Romney Takes a Softer Tack

  —New York Times headline

  Though disagree we might, I hold the view

  That Democrats do love this country, too.

  The leaders of both parties ought to chat.

  In my home state, we did exactly that.

  I’ve got a new respect for single mothers.

  Their burden is much heavier than others’.

  And, short of backing marriage, there are ways

  That we can be both fair and kind to gays.

  And when a great disaster takes its toll,

  Then, certainly, the feds have got a role.

  In fact, in office I would not evade

  The chance to come to any victim’s aid.

  Need proof that these beliefs are at my core?

  Just check my Senate race in ’94—

  ’Cause then, like now, these views were apropos,

  And that was only seven Mitts ago.

  With fears of Sandy and its water rising,

  Mitt’s FEMA views required some revising.

  He tried—and this was not at all surprising—

  To walk back all that talk of privatizing.

  When Sandy called a halt to his campaign,

  He plainly lacked a way to share folks’ pain.

  Barack Obama now was taking charge;

  In times like these, a president looms large.

  So Mitt just watched, as in these closing days

  Both FEMA and Barack got heaped with praise.

  And who had praised the president the most?

  Chris Christie, former foe, now Jersey host.

  The man who’d been like Romney’s alter ego

  Now cheered Obama as his best amigo.

  The pair of them, one slim and one quite lardy,

  Looked from afar a bit like Laurel and Hardy—

  Although as Christie’s paeans grew more numerous,

  Their act struck Romney’s team as far from humorous.

  The storm was mentioned, too, when Bloomberg wrote,

  In Bloomberg News, Obama had his vote.

  So, though Mitt’s houses were on high, dry land, he

  Had come out with some damages from Sandy.

  Both candidates gave closing talks, as planned,

  And then the time for voting was at hand.

  So now the two campaigns had matching goals:

  Make sure their people made it to the polls.

  Since who could vote would surely be disputed,

  Vast throngs of party lawyers were recruited.

  Democracy

  (A patriotic hymn for Republicans)

  Despite the fact that incidents of in-person voter fraud in the United States are exceedingly rare, the GOP has used the issue to tighten election laws around the country.

  —News reports

  American children are all taught in school

  That voting’s democracy’s most vital tool.

  But in the wrong hands all that voting can bring

  A little too much of a very good thing.

  Yes, too many voters of darker complexion

  Can cause the wrong person to win an election.

  And college kids mostly are just in a phase

  That makes them left-wing and supportive of gays.

  To us, each of them is a dangerous blighter

  Whose voting should wait ’til he’s older and whiter.

  So we put in laws we have reason to think

  Will mean that the strength of these voters will shrink.

  We shorten the hours, and ask for a lot

  Of picture IDs—more than anyone’s got.

  Their votes aren’t the votes that the Framers intended.

  We only regret that the Poll Tax has ended.

  The voting we need in this land of the free

  Is voting by people with whom we agree.

  When, finally, the voting did begin,

  Obama’s lead seemed firm but razor thin.

  Some pundits guessed, as lines and lawsuits mounted,

  It might be days before all votes got counted.

  But such predictions turned out to be wrong.

  The wait for the results did not last long.

  In maps that network anchors kept in view,

  The swing states, one by one, got colored blue.

  As Romney’s routes to victory diminished,

  The die was cast. This long campaign was finished—

  A fact that some found hard to comprehend,

&
nbsp; Since they’d been thinking it would never end.

  The polls no longer occupied our time.

  With speeches gone, the silence was sublime.

  Auteurs of cutting ads had sheathed their knives.

  Ohio folks could get back to their lives.

  They answer telephones without the fear

  That questions from a pollster’s what they’ll hear,

  And pop off to the grocery if they choose,

  Without the fear of being on the news.

  Ohio Ends a Swing-State Phase

  Of course it’s an honor to be called by all,

  The state that elects the commander in chief.

  But now that it’s over the sound around here

  Is not lots of weeping but sighs of relief.

  But in just thirty months it starts again.

  Before that time the handlers will unpen

  New candidates who they think have the grit

  To do ferocious battle in the pit.

  And pampered billionaires whose charm consists

  Of wads of dirty money in their fists

  Will on the sidelines scrutinize the pack,

  Deciding which competitor to back.

  About to battle for the laurel wreath,

  The candidates will growl, and bare their teeth.

  Dogfight!

  For my old pal Peter Wolf

  BY CALVIN TRILLIN

  Dogfight

  Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin

  Trillin on Texas

  Deciding the Next Decider

  About Alice

  A Heckuva Job

  Obliviously On He Sails

  Feeding a Yen

  Tepper Isn’t Going Out

  Family Man

  Messages from My Father

  Too Soon to Tell

  Deadline Poet

  Remembering Denny

  American Stories

  Enough’s Enough

  Travels with Alice

  If You Can’t Say Something Nice

  With All Disrespect

  Killings

  Third Helpings

  Uncivil Liberties

  Floater

  Alice, Let’s Eat

  Runestruck

  American Fried

  U.S. Journal

  Barnett Frummer Is an Unbloomed Flower

  An Education in Georgia

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, Calvin Trillin is also The Nation’s deadline poet, at a fee he has been complaining about since 1990. His acclaimed books range from the memoir About Alice to Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff. He lives in New York.