Dogfight (9 page)
Authors: Calvin Trillin
Obama on Immigration and Gay Marriage
He led among them going in,
And this, the White House thought, would lock it.
Announcements that Obama made
Put gay Latinos in his pocket.
The Dems were busy shoring up support
From women (moms and any other sort)—
Reminding them the GOP had made
A promise to repeal Roe versus Wade.
They also built the teams that had displayed
In ’08 how a ground game should be played.
The teams were not the same from sea to sea.
Electoral College voting being key,
A voter’s vote would hardly mean a thing
Except in states referred to now as swing.
The citizens of swing states would decide
Because of where they happen to reside.
In states where red- or blueness is conceded,
Your vote for president’s not really needed.
The total vote the winner can ignore.
The total doesn’t help. Just ask Al Gore.
Ohio
(A 2012 version of the
Wonderful Town
classic)
With the rest of the states either solidly red or solidly blue, the election will be decided in nine or ten swing states.
—News reports
Why oh why oh why oh?
Why did I ever leave Ohio?
Why did I locate where, since it’s no swing state,
Pollsters don’t trouble to track?
Zero is my vote’s weight.
Reason to vote? That’s what I lack.
Oh why oh why oh
Did I leave Ohio?
Maybe I better go O-H-I-O,
Where I could have my vote back.
The Race Shapes Up
Though housing showed some slight signs of recovering,
The unemployment numbers still were hovering
Above a pretty dismal eight percent—
A figure causing widespread discontent.
Unless the ranks of jobless started thinning,
The President could hardly count on winning.
Obama, it was said, should just accept
The fact his policies had proved inept.
And he could only answer in reverse:
Without my actions, this would be much worse.
A Rejected Campaign Slogan
With confidence low and firms still not hiring,
“It could have been worse” is not too inspiring.
He now faced Mitt, and one opponent more:
The promise he’d portrayed four years before,
When his campaign had promised change and hope.
By now, Obama’d given up that trope.
Mitt Romney did have troubles of his own.
Withholding his returns became a bone
That newshounds chewed away on any day
There didn’t seem to be much else to say.
They theorized on what he had to hide,
They wrote about reluctance to abide
By rules obeyed by everyone below
His customary rank of CEO.
Mitt Romney’s Tax Returns
Demands come from left and from right.
Mitt Romney, though, says he’ll sit tight.
We’ve given you people enough,
Says Ann, sounding suddenly tough.
Conspiracy theories abound.
Mitt’s critics relentlessly pound.
Why go through this sort of ordeal?
What doesn’t Mitt want to reveal?
Some shelters far off from our shore?
Well, sure, but there has to be more.
And, really, we already know
His tax rate is terribly low.
Could some corporate losses have meant
That one year he paid not a cent?
What’s in there to make voters squeal?
What doesn’t Mitt want to reveal?
What deed was so sleazy that he’ll
So desperately try to conceal
Exposure with such stubborn zeal?
What fiddling did Romney feel
Showed even a wealthy big wheel
Who feels some gray areas’ appeal
Is slippery, just like an eel?
What doesn’t Mitt want to reveal?
In polls, the man the voters thought most fit
To manage the economy was Mitt;
In business Mitt had proven his agility.
He finished, though, way back in likability.
(Although, despite Obama’s mass appeal, he
Could hardly be described as touchy-feely,
Most folks would to the pollsters volunteer,
“Sure, he’s a guy with whom I’d have a beer.”)
What voters saw in Romney was, all told,
That at his warmest he was rather cold.
They couldn’t really feel enthusiastic
About a man who might be made of plastic.
Obama, also guarded as a rule,
Did not strike folks as cold; he just seemed cool.
The Likability Factor
The polls agree: President Barack Obama is likable. The question is whether he’s likable enough to get re-elected.
—Politico
It’s said, as a rule, the most likable guy
Is likely the guy who’ll pull through.
And given the candidates now set to try,
The Democrats hope that is true.
Though voters, polls show, think Obama is cool
And Romney is colder than ice,
More likable’s not an infallible tool.
Remember: Dick Nixon won twice.
A June Surprise
Quite late in June, the nation’s highest court
Was, in its final session, to report
Its finding on Obama’s health-care act.
The betting odds against the act were stacked:
When looking at the Roberts court, one saw
The sway of ideology, not law.
Though Kennedy would now and then demur,
Four right-wing justices were always sure
The right-wing course was what the Framers meant.
The liberals—four—were usually in dissent.
Not many thought the justices would say
The act was constitutionally okay.
Force purchasing by mandate! Five would glower,
And then agree no Congress has that power.
We Hate It ’Cause It’s His: A Republican Sea Chantey
[The individual mandate had] been at the heart of Republican health-care reforms for two decades. The mandate made its political début in a 1989 Heritage Foundation brief titled “Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans,” as a counterpoint to the single-payer system and the employer mandate, which were favored in Democratic circles … . The mandate made its first legislative appearance in 1993, in the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act—the Republicans’ alternative to President Clinton’s health-reform bill.
—Ezra Klein,
The New Yorker
Oh, why do we so loathe this thing?
We used to love it so.
We used to say “For health reform
This is the way to go.”
We said it was free enterprise
(And we explained just how).
If this was our idea back then,
How could we hate it now?
We hate it ’cause it’s his, lads. We hate it ’cause it’s his.
We hate it ’cause it’s his, lads. That’s what our hatred is.
You needn’t be a whiz, lads, to ace this simple quiz.
We hate it ’cause it’s his, lads. We hate it ’cause it’s his.
Surprise! John Roberts left his usual cluster.
He ruled the health law’s mandate did pass muster.
Comparing health plans, it was now less credible
To say Mitt’s mandate’s fine since it’s not federal
But this Obama plan, we know quite well,
Is sure to put us on the path to Hell.
From what some analysts could ascertain,
John Roberts made the issue less germane.
But it remained a dragon to be slain;
The act had not been demonized in vain:
The right thought Roberts’ ruling on the case
Might be a way to energize the base.
A Sea Chantey Reprise
If Mitt’s plan was the model here,
What caused this great upheaval?
If Mitt’s makes sense, then why is this
Such socialistic evil?
If this approach once seemed so good
That all of us were for it,
Just why is it so wicked now
That all of us abhor it?
We hate it ’cause it’s his, lads. We hate it ’cause it’s his.
We hate it ’cause it’s his, lads. That’s what our hatred is.
You needn’t be a whiz, lads, to ace this simple quiz.
We hate it ’cause it’s his, lads. We hate it ’cause it’s his.
A lull for the Olympics coincided
With what developed into a misguided
And goofy journey that Mitt took abroad,
Where by his gaffes the foreigners were awed.
Mitt Visits Foreign Lands
(And not to hide money)
The Mittster, while taking a three-nation swing
Showed talent for saying the very wrong thing.
He teed off our English friends lickety-split;
The tabloids in London Town called him a twit.
Though Mitt said his motives were never ulterior,
He seemed to be calling the Arabs inferior.
In English and Arabic venom Mitt bathed.
’Twas only in Poland he came out unscathed.
His trip, meant to show foreign policy cred,
Because of Mitt’s gaffes was a model instead
Of what not to say when abroad one doth roam.
So here’s the consensus: He should have stayed home.
Though pollsters said we always should remember
How much could change before we reach November,
The polls rained down, just like a summer shower,
With some poll every hour on the hour.
In almost any survey that you’d check,
Barack and Mitt were running neck and neck.
On cable, every well-connected speaker
Assured us that this race would be a squeaker.
In August, though, by pundits we were told
Mitt’s team might have to make some move that’s bold
If this prize was at last to go to Mitt.
The race required shaking up a bit.
Shaken Up
Before “presumptive” stuck to Romney’s name,
The press already played a little game
Of speculating just what Mitt might do
In choosing who would be his number two.
One measure of the candidates he’d bested:
Just one of them was seriously suggested.
Yes, Tim Pawlenty, who had been the guy
McCain had also thought that he might try
As veep before, with yardage to amass,
He switched and called that long Hail Mary pass.
The candidates who’d been in real contention
With Romney for the win received no mention.
Considering Mitt Romney’s gringohood,
Some thought the veep position surely would
Be offered this time to a person who
Was plainly of a somewhat darker hue.
(They feared one day the Grand Old Party might
Just disappear if it stayed lily-white.)
There were some candidates like that available—
Non-WASP, attractive, and to voters salable.
Marc Rubio, a rising star, was floated,
And so was Nikki Haley, who’d promoted
Mitt Romney very early in her state.
And Condi Rice was mentioned for the slate.
Poor Bobby Jindal hoped that the pervading
Impression of that dorky speech was fading.