Here’s a special original 2008 presidential campaign poetic commentary by TMV’s favorite poet, Michael Silverstein, aka Wall Street Poet.
In this very odd caucus and primary season, we may soon have a folksy small state governor selected by the Republicans, and as this poem (in the style of “Casey At The Bat”) suggests, perhaps even a Democratic nominee picked at a convention where the winner is not known in advance…
A Donkey At The Bat
By Michael Silverstein
It looked to be a shoe-in for the Clintons and their team
They had the key endorsements and a well financed machine
The White House, in their thinking, was their just desert, their right
But when Obama came on strong they knew they’d have to fight.
“We’ll know the party’s candidate with the coming of first snows”
That was the word we all long heard from all the party pros
But after early contest votes, with early counting done
Two front runners now led the field instead of just the one.
Behind these two contenders was a bunched up second tier
They’d try to get their points across but no one cared to hear
In years past this discouraged crew would just throw in the towel
But this time they just did the math and stuck around to howl.
The leading pair still garnered the most delegate support
But not enough to nominate, on that they came up short
So Biden, Edwards, Richardson continued to debate
And even Al Gore saw a chance and started losing weight.
Oh, somewhere there are Democrats who still know how to win
And somewhere blue state heroes rise above the food fight din
They might appear this summer, but more likely what we’ll see
Is just a donkey’s version of reality TV.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.