A CAN-DO CANDIDATE

Speaking of candidates, many years ago, my children, a little man with big ears named H. Ross Perot, decided to run for president as an independent candidate. He had odd ideas--for example, that a nation should pay off its debts. He wanted to run the country as he'd run his prosperous business. Peppy little guy. Did pretty well, then mysteriously dropped out of the race, claiming the life of his daughter had been threatened if he stayed in (something like that)--which the pundits ridiculed. All the pundits come to instant agreement sometimes, usually on the biggest lies (in this case, the likely lie that Perot was simply a silly man making up stories).

Some lines I wrote at the time about Perot seem to apply to nearly all elections. I wasn't that fond of Perot myself (though year by year he, as he was, looks better and better), which led me to write the following:

H. Ross Perot: The worst candidate
who's ever been the best candidate.

[And every election since, the best candidate seems worse. One of the things about Bush that most pisses me off is that he "made" me vote for Kerry. (Apologies to those who still think W was a fine president. Personal opinions may be closer to us than they appear in the mirror.)]

I also wrote the following, which is less meaningful, but more fun--just seeing what I could do with Perot's name, which (like "Elmo" in "Where's Elmo?") comes up MANY times in the poem, in one form or another (I've Italicized his distorted mirror reflections in the poem):

Perotest Vote

Simply peruse Perot's prose
To see why Perot's temper rose
At what this ponderous pauper owes,
As zeroes sprout in proper rows.
Faster than the hole in the upper oz-
-one, our deficit more monstrous grows.
We've got to dump the D.C. pros
Who think we're silly clowns, pierrots!
They paint our future in pure rose;
It's pure red ink, and up it goes!
If we don't pay the piper, who's
The loser who must reap our ruse?
Our kids! They'll have a country whose
Gross Product's paltrier than Peru's.
Face the music, cut the dross--
That's the only way, per Ross.
Perot pro patria's the pero-
-ation of H. Ross Perot.

[Note: The "pauper" is the United States Government. "Pay the piper" is an old idiom meaning to pay for one's pleasures, take responsibility for one's obligations. "Pro Patria"--Latin: For the Fatherland. A peroration (pero-ration--a ration of perot!) is the dramatic conclusion of a speech.]
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Dean Blehert
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