Poetic Political Commentary: Naming The New Politics
Here’s a special original 2008 presidential campaign poetic commentary by TMV’s favorite poet, Michael Silverstein, aka Wall Street Poet.
A growing number of election races are “self-financed” — a euphemism for rich folks buying public office. At the national level Ross Perot did it a few years back, Mitt Romney is doing it today, Mike Bloomberg may opt to do it next year. Here, I not only describe this phenomenon in verse, I give it a name.
Naming The New Politics
In days of yore the rich would seek a needy candidate,
And legally (though quietly) his campaign chest inflate.
Both giver and receiver liked the tradeoff here just fine,
One got himself more access, one could buy more TV time.
But these days folks with money have devised a better plan;
It’s a lot more cost effective, it shuts out the middleman.
Instead of buying influence with others they select,
They run themselves for office and buy public posts direct.
The process here is simple, a no-strainer to relay;
First you hire a consultant to spruce up your resume;
Then greenery you sprinkle among local party hacks,
And one way to dole out more’s created via campaign PACs.
If on the stump it’s clear you’re not a public speaking giant,
A coach can make you sound a lot like William Jennings Bryant;
On bread and butter issues if you’re prone to spouting gapers,
A seasoned campaign flack will write you great position papers.
In the end, of course, it all comes down to making TV buys;
When you spend enough on media, your numbers always rise.
Perfect family, hard hat workers, ethnic types, a waving flag,
Are the content of your message, which gets shown till viewers gag.
While talking heads may hold their nose at such crude repetition,
It’s the perfect way (just ask the pros) to beat the competition.
In mayors’ contests coast to coast, in House and Senate races,
Rich nobodies who buy the tube end up with smiling faces.
So a moneyed power seeker need no longer use a beard,
He can buy an office outright and no one now thinks its weird.
Though perhaps the deeper meanings here require research thorough,
For me a simple term describes it: “New Age: rotten borough.
Copyright 2007 Michael Silverstein
EDITOR’s NOTE: This was supposed to be on the site this morning and actually showed up as being published. But it was NOT on the site. So we are running it now on top of TMV.
