2016 Primary Election
Published as comments in the NYT
See also...
2016 General Election
Copyright ©2016 by Paul Niquette. All rights reserved.

My request from a village in Brittany:
Please don’t dump Donald Trump as your nominee.
            I would then be deprived
            Of the joking derived
From his boastful, nonsensical litany?

Ev’ry Brittany bar sells me whiskey,
And some French guys get really quite frisky.

            It’s so neat packin’ heat

            There in Texas, how sweet!
But for me it would be kinda risky.
The POTUS must meet each criterion.
The strictest would challenge Hyperion:

               In the life of each relative
             There can be nothing negative,

Neither mulish nor foolish vulgarion.

There was once a front runner named Hillary,
The GOP’s fav’rite to pillory.

             While losing her lead –

             Not one to concede –

Against Bernie she used her artillery.


Iowa candidates at the altar of ethanol

View socialized subsidies in government’s protocol.

             With corn payments so rich,

             Campaigns dare not pitch

Policies affecting corn guzzling in gasohol.

The GOP choice is really quite terrible.

Hist’ry has nothing that's even compare-able.

           One decision to dump

           Both Ted Cruz and Don Trump

Might make the old party repairable.

With Republican party ripped at the seams,
Democrats seem to have all the right themes.
          With POTUS as gift
          Priorities must shift:
Down-ticket’s the means for congressional teams.

It seems strange here in France and a little bit raucous

That the primary votes in the Iowa caucus

          'Corn-husker Dynasty'

         With the calendar’s primacy

Might select the next POTUS to shock us.

To Democrats Trump is obnoxious.

Supporters allege he’s innoxious.

          Though Donald talks tough –

          Pure conservative bluff –

Republicans fear he’s RINO-xious

Both Cubans cracked corn and I don’t really care,

Mere proof of most Iowans’ power of prayer.

          Chris will make trouble

          For the “boy in the bubble.”

And Jeb! will trump Ted in the state of Hampshare.


New Hampshire is merely a two-person race.

In the polls just one dude gets a third of the base.

         The other two-thirds,

         In the fewest of words,

Are unanimous with animus and just taking up space.


Young women born since glass ceilings got cracks,

Which were made by a lady in colorful slacks,

          Don’t need to see proof

          Of a frangible roof

They want the best POTUS and Congressional acts.


One hopeful showed footage from scenes so untrue

His campaign then adopted a tactical hew,

          So now there is Ted

          In a party so red

Whose ads feature talent from films so light blue.

 

Mister Trump takes aim on his claim for composting.

There’s a tip from casinos he cites in his boasting:

         As the Art of the Deal,

         With the stop of the wheel,

Then bet on that number, for hist'ry's “past-posting.”


Filibuster lost luster, that’s all.

The Senate now faces down-fall.

         Ted, Marco and Mitch,

         With the seven-year itch,

Erected a SCOTUS stonewall.


Trump pampers obsession against honest concession;

With suppression and sneers, verbal acts of aggression,

         While he trolls ev’ry poll

         To fill holes in his soul,

He wants to be POTUS with no trace of discretion.


Jeb! has dropped out; that’s abundantly clear.

It does not appear that sixteen adds a year

         To eighty-eight, ninety-two,

         To oh-oh and -four too,

Four votes against Bushes not a fifth time, oh dear!

 

One GOP candidate’s words are rhetorical,

With health-care positions that seem categorical:

         “A mandate sure beats

         Rife death on the streets.”

So twenty-sixteen might be seen as historical.

 

Since voters have limited span of attention,

The Trumpian secrets for rapid ascension:

         Deportation enforcement,

         Christie’s endorsement,

Plus insulting resulting in brokered convention.


From Rocky Horror Picture Show,

The GOP right now must know:

         “Shiver with antici…pation.”

         Next debate’s abomination:

Trump stomping stumps who refuse to winnow.


For towers and powers one clown overcame

The weakness and bleakness of his strange fam’ly name.

         Taking ‘Trump’ as triumph

         Over meek ‘Mister Drumpf’.

And rendering the rhyming of lim’ricks fair game


Cruz is no valentine but Trump is so asinine,

The GOP must be drowning in turpentine.

         No time to be chicken,

         So let the plot thicken:

“Contested convention” this lim’rick’s bottom line.

 

Concealing those transcripts keeps Bernie perplexed,

But what firm would pay Hillary’s fees to get vexed?

         Cordial words that she said

         Could mean plenty to dread

As wingnuts take quotes out of trivial context.


Trump insults voters and all candidates who come into range

Trump’s behavior may be weird but no longer seems strange

        “Trump tells it like it is,” but gee whiz,

        Does Trump really know how it is?

Changing Trump’s mind would mean that Trump has a mind to change.

 
Are you going to Reince Priebus's Fare?

Party sage, delegates laid bare.

        Elites prone to bash

        Both black and white trash

Find Trump’s marauders in halls everywhere.


Playing the GOP’s game of endorsement,

While facing the flimsiest rules for enforcement,

        You’ve got Mitt as your titular head,

        So set aside all your Trumpian dread:

And forget all those feelings of fretful remorsement.

 

Since women’s looks comply with Donald’s calibration,

Ted has gone kaputs against rodentian copulation.

        (This lim’rick’s central issues

        Are scribed on bathroom tissues.)

While Johnnie’s coin-op venders grant college fornication.


‘Preparation’, ‘Presentation’, ‘Application’, and ‘Test’:

The first three result in teaching that’s best.

        But bureaucrats favor in Common Core

        Classroom findings from number four,

And mandating standards at Government’s behest.


A simple plurality won’t result in contention.

Just give Donald Trump undivided attention,

         For in Cleveland, one tweet

         Hints of hordes packin’ heat,

So forget all that talk of a ‘brokered convention’.

 

Such convoluted questions!  So the poor sap miss-spoke!

“Punish the woman,” he blurts.  And so in one stroke,

         Being politically correct,

         His campaign got wrecked.

Are you not sad watching Donald Trump choke?


Given cov’rage worth billions, Trump begs for relief

When compliant reporters in rare disbelief

         Ask questions in series

         To challenge his theories.

With Trump as our POTUS we'll get Whiner in Chief.


State symbol legislation demands contemplation

State flower germination not state insect infestation.

         For state book, one must take care:
         Holy text but not Voltaire,

Thus solemn consecration more than civil celebration.


Both Clinton and Sanders are well qualified

As candidates for POTUS thence govern nationwide.

         Of that gaffe, “Subway ‘token’,” 

         New York voters have spoken.

Fork-or-fingers for pizza must be certified.

Given three candidates few voters can palate,

For gavel Paul Ryan will need a huge mallet.

         Now there’s Kasich and Cruz

         Jointly putting the screws

To nomination of Trump on the very first ballot.

 

Trump began his ham-handed gender war

By drawing deep thoughts from his limited reservoir.

         It’s not very hard

         To cry “Playing her card!”

But the Donald has chosen a meaningless metaphor.

 

“Lucifer” for Cruz by the Speaker from Dayton

Sure bedevils my challenging task for creatin'

         In meter and rhyme

         A lim’rick to slime

Bête noire in Congress, Beelzebub Satan.

 

Out of seventeen hopefuls, Republicans selected

Trump as finalist no one expected.

         Add Christie’s concertina,

         Joyless songs by Fiorina.

Will that be enough to get Trump elected?


Provoking the madness of crowds by pandering,

The GOP winner extolled his own philandering.

         No need for tact;

         Instead when attacked,

Trump merely cited a tabloid for slandering

Pursuing riches in business: Is that the “American Dream”?

No, steady paycheck, fair wages, good schools are life’s theme.

        So Republicans beware

        Trump’s voters don’t care

‘Bout ‘conservative values’ and your ‘trickle-down’ scheme.

 

For a Speaker as Veep, Trump has Gingrich or Boehner.  

Chris Christy makes sense; Rick Perry? No-brainer.

         If Santorum’s too uppity,

         Evangelicals like Huckabee.

Lose Cruz from the Senate and there’s not one complainer.


Sarcasm Alert: Let’s not be analytical.

One candidate for POTUS is quite a-political.

         With Trump as our saint,

         ‘Family values’ are quaint;

We’re licensed for lust, thus not hypocritical.

 

Sarcasm Alert: Students at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale

Need more scholars who preach about Jonah and the Whale,

          Noah and the Ark,

          Creation in the dark,

Revelations and dogmas found in every Bible tale.

 

Five choices define hierarchy of pain:

‘Endorse’ or ‘support’ in public can strain

          What people with clout

          Might want to get out.

In secret, vote ‘for’ or ‘against’ or ‘abstain’.


Let Donald push Paul on a hospital gurney

As he casually makes his polemical journey.

         While the GOP’s scaffold

         Leaves voters quite baffled,

Let Hillary run on a platform by Bernie.


Loop-holes in tax-codes for Trump are abundant.

We all understand why he might be reluctant…

         To show huge depreciations,

         Despite huge appreciations…

Voilà!  Trump’s campaign to the eye is self-fundant.


Primary voters thought Trump was quite loaded.

“Self-funded campaign” meant he’d never be goaded

         By law-writing lobbyists,

         Or check-writing hobbyists.

But in the election that myth got exploded.


John Miller, press spokesman for a real estate magnate,

Spoke “off the record” with the chummiest mandate.

         His boss then insisted

         That he never existed,

Which immediately opened a cable-news floodgate.


Give Chuck the majority and Mitch the minority;

Give Nancy her gavel to end inferiority.

         Though lots of arrivals

         Comprise “teams of rivals,”

Hillary’s Cabinetry you'll see ‘White House Sorority’.


Changing from “previous” is not really devious.

Trump is obsequious; as such he’s oblivious.

         Mere poll-driven prattle,

         All talk but no cattle.

The GOP faithful are becoming quite queasy-ous.


To play the debt game, “Incongruities of Wealth,”

Leverage your balance sheet; show a state of poor health.

         To avoid paying tax,

         Best hide all the facts;

Read Trump’s campaign book: “The Art of the Stealth”

 

An American in France finds Britons bemusing.

Continental communion seems bound for a bruising.

         The referendum called ‘Brexit’

         Most assuredly wrecks it.

Still, Pythonic burlesque makes the subject amusing.

 

The fibs in Trump’s rants were not “career shattering.”

Then Hillary’s speech, in its nonchalant battering,

         With sense-of-absurd,

         But not one curse-word,

Skunked GOP’s “nabob of nattering.”

 

The GOP candidate is a climate nay-sayer;

Plus he make heedless holes in earth’s ozone layer.

         For propellant, tell Trump

         He can use an air pump

To deliver the glue from his precious hair-sprayer.

 

Trump makes the most of his Twitter crowd-source.

He whips his huge horse with no trace of remorse.

         GOP orthodoxy,

         Once mere paradoxy,

Now reluctant Republicans are forced to endorse.

 

Pitiful Donald seems utterly deprived

Of most common virtues – hey, adulthood-derived!

         He can neither be blamed,

         Nor made to feel shamed.

So political support must be wholly contrived.

 

A most distinguished ex-FLOTUS

Will become a great POTUS.

         Let’s get Congress unstuck

         With Nancy and Chuck,

And good judges to fill up the SCOTUS.




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