Bush & Company

Since de facto presidential nominee Mitt Romney has recruited his better half as his chief, most earnest, enabler, she may already have mustered who knows how many credulous voters into his camp with her sweet, feminine good looks, charm and the seeming authenticity and genuine naturalness that he lacks.

Mrs. Romney's main target must be women, in an effort to counteract his attacks on their rights, notably per the brutal Ryan Budget Plan he's called "marvelous," but she must aim for the entire electorate, merrily defending and attempting to mitigate his senior year prep school bullying as harmless, hilarious pranks. It wouldn't do for voters to perceive him as a fully developed adult tormentor.

I couldn't be a luckier wife---
I lead the most ideal life
And all you women like me should
Know Mitt's plan is for your own good

And chasing sissies down the hall
Until they finally trip and fall
And cutting off their bleached blond hair---
Now just how is that so unfair?

It really makes me laugh! As for
That blind man led into a door---
Just one more kooky escapade,
A monkeyshine, a trick he played

Like all those wacky things he's done.
I ask you, where's your sense of fun?

On May 8, swiftboating was reborn. The new swiftboaters are attacking Barack Obama for his achievements and using them against him.

They will attempt to spin the Obama raid on Osama bin Laden's safe house into a detriment, muddying the waters to confuse the public. They will repeat their twists of truth over and over until, by some, they're believed. They will refashion President Obama's national security and foreign affairs strengths into weaknesses, as Mitt Romney knows but little about such matters, while making simplistic and hawkish claims about what he would do and have done.

The secretive rightist group, Veterans for a Strong America, "securing America's future by supporting conservative veterans," led by former Koch brothers Americans for Prosperity consultant, Iraq veteran Joel Arends, seeks to do to the president what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to candidate, Senator John Kerry. They plan to enlist Navy Seals and Special Forces to fortify their mission.

Radical Republican politicians not only wish to turn the president's successes into failures, but to somehow make his successes their own.

They fought for us, they risked their lives,
Seeming good men---tell me what drives
Such men to tell egregious lies
So they'll attain so base a prize,

While sons and daughters will believe
To win the fight you must deceive.
What kind of lesson, so amiss?
What kind of legacy is this?

Fox News common sense commentator Sheppard Smith, though part of the Right Wing's unofficial arm, said on May 9 that President Obama is "on the right side of history."

Our president, who has evolved into his belief that gays and lesbians should have the same civil rights as everyone else and be allowed to marry, was quietly commended by Fox's token voice of reason.

This time, has Mr. Smith gone too far?

A Brief Note to Mr. Smith

Dear Mr. Smith, I fear for you---
Just what inspired such derring-do?
Those foolish words, however true,
Tomorrow, sadly, you may rue,

For would your masters let you stay
At Fox even another day?
Oh, well, take heart, perhaps we'll see
You soon on MSNBC!

A new ebook, THE YOUNG GUNS, by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), published by Simon & Schuster, is based on their Young Guns program to recruit strong conservative candidates.

The Young Guns themselves represent the Extreme Right dominating the House, not in the interest of their constituents, particularly women, they and their cohorts voting against the Violence Against Women Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and to defund Planned Parenthood with its range of primary and preventive procedures and sliding scale costs.

Women earn 77 cents on the dollar; men earn 100 percent; Social Security benefits paid upon retirement subsequently default for women. Entitlement monies are now being referred to by Republican legislators as "slush funds."

Senator McCain calls this war on women "imaginary." House Speaker Behner calls it "the so-called 'war on women.' " Senate Minority Leader McConnell calls it "a manufactured issue."

These are the sorts of candidates the Young Guns seek to enlist---uncaring, reactionary men like themselves.

The three Young Guns intend to find
More pols precisely their own kind
Who'll resurrect past issues, then
Though settled, they'll vote on again
And mock those matters, all too real,
Denying them with equal zeal,
Yet paying them but little mind.

Grave issues are diminished when
Defined by mean and clueless men.

THE PRESIDENTS CLUB, Simon & Schuster (April, 2012)

Congratulations, Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, on your new book, THE PRESIDENTS CLUB.

I was curious, too, about the fraternity among the former presidents and published on bushandcompany, April 4, 2011, comments on a March 21, 2011 event honoring George H. W. Bush for his contribution to volunteerism. All four living former presidents were present. This reminded me that the camaraderie among past presidents is like an unofficial fraternity and so I followed up with this verse:

The old boys club, now down to four,
And long ago, when they were more,
Perhaps have met, comparing notes,
Exchanging humorous anecdotes,

Examining not too closely those
Sins and omissions to expose;
All barbs and rancor put aside,
By time's erosion mollified;

And in some dim and distant pub,
May meet that other old boys club.
Hoist high your mugs, historic gents!

Farewell, farewell, past presidents. . .

I hope you both will read the whole piece; we seem to be on a similar wave length.

A network of lies connects those politicians who abet their tainted fellows, whose lies they support and repeat to their own personal or partisan gain.

These are the enablers. Eventually, their beneficiaries may return the favor.

There is a doggedness that binds
Them each to each, all of a kind,
That so definitively blinds
Them to the hollow legacy

They finally must leave behind,
When it will be too late to see
At the inevitable hour,
How meaningless their transient power.

Meanwhile, that shameless quid pro quo
Perpetuates its ebb and flow. . .

Back in March, a reporter overheard Ted Nugent on his cell phone in a sports/gun store talking to Mitt Romney who was clearly soliciting an endorsement from the ex-rocker. Nugent promised, once he'd secured Romney's pledge not to back down on the Second Amendment and gun owners' rights.

Now the Romney campaign denies the request while son Tagg extols the "cool" endorsement.

Trashy enough was Mr. Romney's acceptance of casino owner Donald Trump's endorsement at his Las Vegas Trump Hotel, but this is beyond the pale.

At the same mid-April NRA convention in St. Louis where Romney vowed his support, the former rocker ranted his reckless subtext suggesting the assassination of President Obama. Romney's response, forced by public opinion, called only for more civility.

Noteworthy are the multiple shootings in St. Louis in recent years, so numerous that local groups have demanded a gun violence summit.

The NRA is now distancing itself from board member Nugent.

If Mitt out of gratitude
Names that cool ex-rocker dude
For a presidential post,
That'd really be the most!

If the guy should be the veep,
In the White House he could keep
Ammo stacked with semis, too---
Rat-tat-tat! That's what he'd do!

What a high, man, when he'd trash
Every liberal with his stash!
Sure, I know the point is moot---
Hell, what if he doesn't shoot?

If he does, though, what a hoot!

The stunningly tactless de facto presidential nominee has done it again---just another defining moment in his campaign.

On April 17, Mitt Romney rejected the cookies of baker John Walsh, owner of the Bethel Park, Pennsylvania family store, the Bethel Bakery.

A picnic table was laid with a modest snack of cookies, lemonade and pretzels. There, a small group of handpicked, middle-class Republicans sat with Mr. Romney to discuss economic issues. Mr. Romney remarked that he didn't like the look of the cookies, they didn't look homemade and were probably from a 7-Eleven "bakery, or wherever," affronting the local 7-Eleven, the bakery and the baker.

Mr. Walsh, a Republican, though "shocked," has graciously excused Mr. Romney, saying he would be pleased to have him visit his popular bakery for a treat made especially for him. Meanwhile, the politician's adverse publicity is bringing the bakery more business than ever, with a clever "Cookiegate Special."

One more time, Mr. Romney has demonstrated who he really is.

Those cookies don't look like homemade,
Said Mitt with obvious suspicion,
Unlike the usual politician,
Who shrewdly would be too afraid

He might offend the middle class,
So lets his skepticism pass,
His squeamishness, even revulsion---
And wisely sips his lemonade;

But such sagacity's not his---
A clue who Mittens really is.

De facto first lady nominee, the "popular," "appealing," "sympathetic" Ann Romney, is an enabler.

When panic sets in, candidates parade their spouses to tout their own assets.

There is little to back up Mrs. Romney's zealous, but vacuous, commendations, which are possibly embarassed overkill.

Admired by some, the loyal Ann
Believes in standing by her man,
Yet others say she's well aware
And that she simply doesn't care;

Perhaps it would be too unkind
Indifferently to hang behind
And so remains seemingly blind
To what is clearly in her mind,

For would she rhapsodize that much
If she were really out of touch?

Perhaps the worst lie yet, presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney on April 10, accused Barack Obama, champion of women, of waging "the real war on women," overlooking the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signed into law by the president in 2009. Further, that "92.3% of jobs lost during the Obama years" was by women. PolitiFact reports that's "mostly false."

On April 11, Mr. Romney stated, "The president has failed American women," claiming to be a women's rights advocate himself, without any facts to support it. Conversely, on March 13, he had stated his intention to "get rid of" Planned Parenthood, an organization dedicated to all aspects of women's health, significantly including preventive procedures, at very nominal cost.

Mr. Romney, you have no regard for the truth, no regard for the reputation of others and none for the public good.

You are an unprincipled man.

A thing that's typical of Mitt---
He always says the opposite.
Whatever you have ever heard,
There is no substance to his word.
Instead of working for the good,
He said he'd trounce Planned Parenthood.

No need for us to hear much more---
There's little else we have to know---
Like multitudes of facts that show
The lack of character at his core.

On April 10, Rick Santorum finally succumbed to the greater funding power of presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney. He had said that Romney was "uniquely unqualified" to compete against Obama; also, that "we might as well stay with what we have," a statement he later modified.

Will he now endorse him, even though he savagely villified him while they were rivals? After all, he said he actually likes him and when asked if he would consider running on a Romney ticket, he replied, "Of course."

How're you gonna do it, Rick,
Say that Mitt's the one to pick?
You characterized him as "the worst,"
Who nonetheless will come in first;

But if you're really nice to Mitt,
You could become the running mate
Of that other reprobate,
Once again a candidate.

It won't matter, not a bit,
If some call you hypocrite.

The Big Five of the Supreme Court, conservative justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas---but including swing voter Anthony Kennedy---hold the tenuous health care of the nation's majority in their hands.

Whether or not to overthrow the embattled Obama health care law rests entirely with a group proven historically to be politically biased, notably in abetting the stolen election in 2000 of George W. Bush and in 2010, the Citizens United ruling allowing unlimited undisclosed campaign funding.

They favor freedom to choose among prohibitively priced insurers, between food and crucial prescriptions and sometimes freedom to die.

Justice Scalia says it's "unrealistic" to plow through 2,700 pages of the law to try and preserve at least some of its provisions.

Can even these blatant partisan appointees coldly dispense with such critical human matters or if the decisive voter Kennedy insists on splitting constitutional hairs, causing millions to lose indispensable affordable health care, how will he face himself thereafter?

Will our health care, so hard won,
Fatuously be undone?
Have the five found an excuse
For their thinly cloaked abuse?
Can they really be so blind,
Leaving comity behind?>

What was in each framer's mind
As that document was signed,
Trustingly endowing our
Imperfect men with so much power?

President Obama on April 3, broke with staying above the fray, distinctly differentiating what his goals as president are from those of sure nominee Mitt Romney, who has made the Ryan budget plan his vehicle for election. Like his champion-in-chief Joe Biden, he named names, roundly denouncing the now Ryan/Romney budget, as Mr. Romney vowed a first act of his presidency would be passing the plan (besides revoking the Affordable Care law). The budget favors oil companies, companies that outsource, Wall Street and billionaires, not to mention its assaults on seniors, women, children, the middle class, the working poor and veterans.

Mr. Romney, Mr. Ryan and others are bent on further crippling our country in order to place blame on the president.

Mr. Romney would be as busy as progressives FDR and Mr. Obama in the first days of their administrations, but he would be taking us back in time.

The president is getting mad.
The GOP has changed its course,
Relying on its "Trojan Horse"---
A second budget plan as bad

As Ryan's first one and The Mitt
Is loudly out endorsing it
And once the radicals are in,
Buck up and take it on the chin

You ninety-niners, on your own,
Deep in the Ryan/Romney zone
Where all your sweet security
Has been replaced by liberty---

The more important thing, of course.
They'll tell you this without remorse.

Ryan and Mittens---made for each other?

It should come as no surprise,
Matched like onion rings and fries,
Budget Man and Billionaire
Teamed up to end Medicare
And whatever else they dare

In their dark determination
To bring down our ailing nation.

John Kenneth Galbraith, revered economist, ambassador and author said, "Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory." Not least among possible applications to this statement are real convictions and lasting loyalties.

If it seems expedient,
He claims that's not what he meant
Or will actually revoke
What he said, say he mispoke.

As a waffler, he's a vet;
Factually, forgets to vet.
When his prospects seem most bleak,
Aspirations up the creek,

That resourceful politician
Makes his foe his dearest friend;
Though he views him with suspicion,
Previous denouncements end,

Till more harshly than he should,
Shuns him for the public good.
Comments made in pundit speak
Oft are made with tongue in cheek.

Change of Heart in March

Former vice president, Dick Cheney, had heart transplant surgery on March 24, following over 30 years of various cardiac procedures. The donor is unknown. Perhaps it was a saintly individual, above most politicians in goodness and grace.

Mr. Cheney has a heart,
A brand-new heart put in today.
Maybe this will be the start
Of a transformed life that may
Be lived in a whole new way. . .

In 2005, then-governor Jeb Bush of Florida, signed the "Stand Your Ground" bill into law, justifying it saying, "It's common sense to allow people to defend themselves."

Yet this is a law patently susceptible to exploitation, a law that invites a murderer, who may aggressively stalk and initiate confrontation, by simply saying he felt threatened, to avert interrogation, arrest, trial, conviction, imprisonment. This is a law that states clearly that a citizen in an encounter has "no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground"---especially deadly since concealed weapons are legal in Florida, the first state to pass such a law, serving, so far, as the model for 20 or more others.

How can leaders be so shortsighted? Can't they predict the certain abuse?

Ask the families of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin of Sanford, Florida and 20-year-old Bo Morrison of Slinger, Wisconsin what they think of the law that allowed the killing of their boys.

How does Jeb Bush, who March 21, endorsed Mitt Romney---currently a Second Amendment and NRA supporter---feel about his law now?

How can our leaders be so blind?
Whatever could be in their mind?
How is it that none of them saw
What must result from such a bill

So senselessly signed into law
That clearly grants the right to kill?

Mitt's "good" and "great" friends are mostly CEOs and owners of NASCAR and football teams. It would be wise not to broadcast such predictable revelations. Will he never learn?

There are among us many who're
A little bit and very poor.
Mitt's heard about them, I suppose,
But they're nobody that he knows.

Even as everyman veep Joe Biden delivered a sizzling kick-off stump speech to United Auto Workers in Toledo, Ohio on March 15, emphatically naming opposition names, President Obama was rallying students, faculty and visitors at a top community college in Largo, Maryland, wryly alluding to his chief opponents "who shall go unnamed." Everybody got it.

Who else but our Barack's man Joe
Can best deal the most deadly blow?
It's Joe who knows how to expound,
Who handily spells out and shames

Those empty suits by naming names;
And that's how our Barack can stay
So fittingly above the fray---
As long as good old Joe's around.

In the deftly combined footage and docudrama GAME CHANGE, from the book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, the portrait of Sarah Palin, played by Julianne Moore, largely sympathetic, perhaps in an effort not to appear slanted, is of a woman thrust upon the national scene totally unprepared.

Her inhumane treatment of Alaskan wildlife, her ultimate disloyalty to McCain, played by Ed Harris, her signature vindictive verbal assaults, are avoided. Suspiciously overdrawn is her depicted devotion to family---so often serving as opportunistic props for her ambitions.

Palin claims the film is "based on a false narrative," while former campaign aide Nicolle Wallace, played by Sarah Paulson, says it's "true enough to make me squirm."

Neither Palin nor McCain granted interviews to screenwriter Danny Strong and McCain, who would not watch the film, is "proud of our campaign. . .I thought she was the most qualified person." Campaign chief strategist Steve Schmidt, played by Woody Harrelson, candidly admits that she wasn't, though he was most instrumental in choosing her for the ticket.

Of the four visible candidates---libertarian Ron Paul, true conservative Rick Santorum, faux conservative Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, questionable---Mitt is the most intent on being president, as an individual and perhaps more so as the designate of his secretive and controlling Mormon church. None of the others so far is willing to drop out, despite Mitt's proclaimed inevitability.

Meanwhile, resolute pioneer Buddy Roemer will run as an independent, the nominee of nonpartisan Americans Elect as well as the Reform Party. He hopes to "end the corruptive influence of money in politics so we can focus on America's top priority---jobs." "Washington is bought and sold" he said, persevering toward being "a president free to lead."

While Mitt seems ready to believe
That he can hustle and deceive,
Concealing what he really thinks
And can prevail with jokes and winks,

Rick's heart and soul are on his sleeve
With all he's planning to achieve,
But it would cause great discontent
If he were ever president,

As Bud, relentless, plunges on,
Determined that he carry on,
His mission, get that money out!
We know, too, what he's all about.

Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh's abusive remarks about Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke on three separate programs distorted her words to Congress on the need for complete women's health coverage, including birth control, February 23. Calling her a slut and a prostitute, he's been widely censured, but not by the Republican candidates. The poised and dignified Ms. Fluke put him properly in his place and the stigma of Mr. Limbaugh's comments will remain, despite his coerced, evasive apology describing his vitriol as a lowering to the level of Democrats.

It's hard to imagine that the commentator could believe his farfetched and smutty bombast, directed to salacious, ignorant listeners to maintain his scurrilous reputation. Perhaps we should pity all those who carry with them such poisonous, all-embracing hatred.

It seems that freedom of speech gives license to foul the airwaves, allowing broadcasters to besmirth the innocent to meanspirited, approving audiences.

What does their conduct say about their enablers?

What does it say about our laws?

Tell me when does it begin---
The hate and\ anger deep within
That can so virulently thrive
To keep their fantasies alive?

The venom coursing through his veins
Relentlessly is what explains
Why he so heinously assails---
And yet somehow he still prevails.

Whenever the possibly real Romney emerges, he turns around and spoils it.

It may be that he doesn't know
Just what he means or who he is,
Because he's told so many lies
And changed his stance so many times

And every opposite one he tries
Or when he slips and dares to show
Whatever thoughts are truly his,
As if decreed, he soon denies.

That's all for now, I'm out of rimes.

What could be more ludicrous than the foes of President Obama casting him again as a failure when again the facts bear out the opposite?

The current hysteria is not about "religious freedom," as both his political opponents and Catholic bishops assert. These are fraudulent words, still used, even though the president has offered a very acceptable compromise to the outdated controversy over birth control. Recalcitrant Catholic institutions, while providing contraceptive services covering total women's health, would not be obliged to act against their principles by paying for them; insurance companies would, a far cry from the expense of abortion, pregnancy and delivery.

Yet Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) is now introducing a bill that would not only deny all health services, in any given circumstance, to women, but violate one of our basic tenets---separation of church and state.

Extreme Rightists are using the lives and well-being of women to try and topple President Obama and distract attention from the real issue of the day---jobs---because they have no viable solution themselves.

What better way can we attest
To what The One we have's the best
Than pointing out his leadership
Provides much more to us than lip

And still his foes seek to distract
With arguments quite inexact---
The clear intent that we forget
Our most important issue yet--

Their vapid words are just a way
To try and make it go away.

On February 2, in the lobby of his Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, hotel and casino magnate Donald Trump endorsed Mitt Romney, "not concerned about the very poor," for president who, his wife Ann beside him, accepted the "honor."

Trump was fully expected to endorse other frontrunner Newt Gingrich, very let down by the nasty surprise. Not long ago, he denigrated his now endorsee with words like "small business guy" and he didn't own the company, he just "worked there."

As Mitt was being trumpeted in Las Vegas by a known tabloid braggart and hypocrite, his main rival, President Obama, officiating at a prayer breakfast at the Washington Hilton, quoted Jesus saying "For whom much is given, much shall be required."

The ambitious Donald Trump is intent on sponsoring a winner and the secretive Mormon Church, though opposed to gambling, permits the seduction of its favorite son by a casino owner, its determined ambitions allowing for any means to an end.

Two famous multimillionaires,
At least for now joined at the hip
In semi-permanent partnership---
One is The Donald, one The Mitt

And one of them, so shamefully, who'd
Allowed himself thus to be wooed---
The Donald's current favorite
Is often seen in campaign jeans

Persisting in his worn routines,
Although it's more than likely there's
The chance that neither's benefit
Is worth more than a hill of beans.

The insidious reach of the radical Right libertarian Koch brothers of Koch Inductries, Wichita, Kansas---philanthropism to the arts and medical research cloaking their real goals---was revealed in February 2011, to be behind Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker's assault on collective bargaining in his state (for the sake of the budget, he said) which burgeoned nationally, and the attempt to make clownlike Herman Cain president, touches upon other sectors, as well, notably the proposed Keystone Pipeline project, questioned by President Obama on environmental grounds and the few temporary jobs it would create, and higher education, Koch's endless resources now funding 150 colleges and universities with contracts that determine hiring of professors, curriculum and ideologies to be forwarded.

Moreover, the brothers' relentless push for impractically low personal and corporate taxes, minimum industrial and environmental regulation and dismantling of needed social programs makes them perhaps the most dangerous force in the nation today.

Unless stopped, their nefarious influence will ultimately control every facet of American life, including academic freedom.

Our greatest blight, the brothers Koch,
Unlike most of our gentlefolk;
Once and for all, their covert skill
Has been uncloaked and yet they still

Can bend the spineless to their will
(Their noxious sway no one foresaw?)
And surely will persist until
The legislators on The Hill,

To bring that power down to nil,
Devise and vote yea to a bill
Signed by the president into law.

There's something very wrong with every one (except, perhaps, Buddy Roemer, whose fervent crusade against the Super PACs must make the others, all recipients of the anonymous funding sources, somewhat uneasy).

Mitt's said to have just piles and piles
Of moolah in the Cayman Isles
And baggage carried by the Newt
Keeps adding to his disrepute

And Rick's Far Right relentless stance---
Not much escapes his righteous rants,
While honest Ron has tried to hide
The secret of his darker side;

And then there's Bud, who stands alone---
Those Super PACs he won't condone---
No funds (if offered) will he take,
Although a presidency's at stake,

Which puts him well outside the zone. . .

Ironically, President Obama, because of the critical nature of this election, must accept PAC donations himself, even though he disapproves of them.

On January 15, handsome, smooth, smart, experienced and filthy rich Jon Huntsman was endorsed by Associate Editor Cindi Scoppe of South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State. Hours later, Mr. Huntsman bowed out of his ineffectual race, possibly just a dry run, endorsing "Mittens' Romney, whom he had hours earlier bombarded as an unreliable flipflopper, a job killer and one who enjoys firing people, not someone we would want as president. Endorsement of his former foe stressed that he was the only candidate who could beat Barack Obama.

We may see Mr. Huntsman in the next election cycle, this time conducting a well-prepared, determined campaign.

I'd like an explanation, Jon---
Just what the hell is going on?
The very day Ms. Cindi, who

Gave her endorsement just to you,
You gave a mean slap in the face,
Endorsing Mittens in your place.

The likelihood, in any case,
Is that we'll see you down the road,
This time, in focused campaign mode.

Reactionary Roman Catholic Rick Santorum wears his intolerance like a badge of honor, clinging to unrealistic tenets of his faith which many Catholics have rejected due to the pressures and complexities of modern life.

Young voters in the main don't buy his diatribes against gay marriage, birth control, and isses like "Obamacare"---
realizing the unreliability of church, family, friends and other helpful volunteers saving the day in times of critical need, like the townsfolk of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Likely disdaining entitlements as welfare, he nonetheless saw to it when in the Senate that Medicare benefits were sent to Puerto Rico from United Health Services, his cut amounting to $400,000.

Once bearing the sobriquet "Senator Slash," the former lawmaker, believer in limited government and the radical Ryan plan, who savaged Democratic foes with the best of them, is after all, just one more noncompassionate political hypocrite who may let up on his chief nomination rival, frontrunner Mitt Romney, with an eye to a cabinet appointment by the possible next president of the United States.

Unlike the Rickster's long parade
Of helpers rushing to your aid,
There are things government must do
Even when some others pitch in, too,

As Rick can't but be well aware---
And Puerto Rico will admit---
In profiting more than a bit
From sending them our Medicare.

Another D C hypocrite
May pander to a winning Mitt,
Who might, once his course has been set,
Think Rick's fit for his cabinet.

Buddy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman and Republican Louisiana governor, is running for president, but few people know it. One reason is that he's never been invited to participate in the debates, perhaps because he's such a sensible and honorable man. How he'd show up the other candidates! Funding his campaign solely with individual contributions of $100 maximum, he disdains the anonymous, pernicious Super PACSs.

"The biggest threat to our country is corruption," he told Rachel Maddow on January 6.

"I've got to get on the debates," he said. " I've been shut out of every darn one and I wonder why."

Mr. Roemer is waging war for campaign reform, against money in politics. He's voiced vehement disapproval of President Obama for his vast stash of PAC money, but I would argue that the president has no choice but to follow an established system he's trapped in to win an election that for the salvation of the country he must win.

Mr. Roemer could be a transformative president, but will probably never have the opportunity to prove it.

In the course of these events
Buddy is the only one
In this presidential run
Who makes almost perfect sense

That the people rarely hear.
Cruelly shunned by every peer,
Sadly, Buddy can't compete
On the stage where rivals meet---

There he's never seen or heard
Getting out his sober word.

Two seemingly trustworthy candidates low on the totem pole share this, too, in common: neither will win. So why doesn't Jon Huntsman follow the lead of rival Buddy Roemer (even Ron Paul) and stay honest and on message?

Jon Huntsman, a former ambassador to China, a former Utah governor and a businessman, with diverse experience and expertise, is informed on climate change and evolution and other issues that most of his competitors deny through ignorance or political expediency, yet he's flipflopped at least three times during his campaign, recently on December 6: Scientists "owe us more" on climate change; "There's not enough information to formulate policies." He had even said he'd "absolutely" run on a Michele Bachmann ticket if asked; the history-challenged Bachmann, whom he had roundly criticized; his evasive justification being, "If you love this country, you serve this country."

Jon, you can't win. Why not honor your statement, televised before millions, "I must be true to who I am"?

Others you may castigate
On the presidential slate,
Yet you sometimes take your cues
From their simpleminded views,

Though this contest that you're in
You must know that you can't win,
So those flipflops are in vain
That have sullied your campaign.

Here's a notion for you, Jon---
Be like Bud or even Ron---
Waffling is not their game---
Can't you try to be the same?

Spending only what Bud raises
Also merits boundless praises.
In this interparty war
From you we expected more.

One way that political candidates humanize themselves is to trot out their spouses, especially when in critical straits. This is especially true of former Mormon lay leader Mitt Romney, whose mormonism dictates that he be the chosen member (as opposed to long-time rival, Mormon Jon Huntsman) of the politically ambitious Mormon church to occupy the Oval Office. His so frequently mentioned wooden image requires both the softness and the strong support of a devoted wife.

According to Ann Romney, she told Mitt, despite his firm disinclination, that he must run to save the country.

Newt Gingrich's wife, Callista, said she convinced Newt to press on, regardless of his fall in the polls.

Their purported efforts are perhaps superfluous. Newt's well-known baggage and dwindling funding countered by Mitt's high-powered business successes and the ruthless use of his enormous financial resources would probably suffice to surpass Newt, who stubbornly said of Mitt on January 2, "He won't get rid of me, he'll just slow me down."

Some say that it's a last resort---
The campaign trail is all up hill---
A desperate measure, if you will,
To scan the hearthside for support

And send the little woman out,
An urgent mission this, to tout
Her spouse's worth and to convince:
The lying pol's a real prince.

The unsung jewel of his life---
At times it's good to have a wife!

The newly animated, almost euphoric, Mitt Romney, seems to be brimming over with self-confidence as he attempts a tenuous balance between conservatism and moderation, all the while playing the part of a regular guy, just like you and me.

Meantime, Newt the Nice is abandoning his recent nonnegative policy as others attack him and he fights back; Newt, who never really intended to run for president, but caught the bug; Newt, who jumps from role to specious role as he determines the moment requires; Newt, who between Christmas and New Year's, displayed one truly genuine moment of honest emotion when an interviewer asked about his mother; Newt, who is on his way out.

Mitt, consistent in his barely wavering place in the polls, seems as ever destined for the nomination. We can expect, once achieved, that he will turn his venom on President Obama with relentless, unjustified tongue lashings from his mendacious mouth, the exact opposite of what's actually true.

The Mittster seems to have it made;
It's paying off, this game he's played,
Insisting he's a true job maker
When truth to tell, he's just a taker;

To trash the Newtster---just a blast
About his rival's scurvy past;
To trash Barack he has to lie
And doesn't even have to try.