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us will live forever,
        With Nine Nine Nine.
        A country that now seems depressed and limp’ll
        Be great again if we just keep things simple.
    ----
    Although his patter in debates could tickle,
    Cain’s pool of knowledge seemed less pool than trickle.
    Some questions seemed to cause his speech to vanish,
    As if the questioner had asked in Spanish.
    (On Libya, his silence caused a buzz:
    One couldn’t tell if he knew what it was.)
    His ignorance, which was at times sublime,
    Made Perry look like Kennan in his prime.
    He never had held office in the past.
    His staff was neither deep nor quick nor vast.
    He spent much time, reporters kept on noting,
    Promoting books in states that were not voting.
    An old harassment charge had come to light.
    (Cain, saying it was false, was not contrite.)
    By then, as Perry’s star began to fade,
    Election analysts were quite dismayed
    To read what they had never thought they’d read:
    The Herminator now was in the lead.
    ----
         The Pundits Contemplate Herman Cain
           I
        We’ve spent a month of this campaign
        In trying daily to explain
        The steady rise of Herman Cain.
        Through willingness to risk a strain
        In every muscle of the brain,
        We’ve laid out all we think germane
        To help the public ascertain
        Why Cain consistently can gain
        (Despite, some charge, a moral stain)
        Support that doesn’t seem to wane
        No matter how we all complain
        That thinking voters might ordain
        For Cain a four-year White House reign
        Is truly—to be blunt—insane.
           II
        So far, our work has been in vain.
    ----
    His ignorance is not what did him in.
    No, Cain’s campaign was sabotaged by sin.
    Complaints of Herman making intramural
    Advances, it came out, were in the plural.
    Outside the office he’d been naughty, too.
    The final straw, which hastened his adieu,
    Although this, too, the candidate denied:
    He’d had a little something on the side.
    Cain’s numbers in the polls began to slip.
    Then Herman Cain withdrew. He’d been a blip.
    The interest in him now had run its course,
    Except to see which horse he might endorse.
    ----
         Lamentations of the Late-Night Comics
        While Jimmy Fallon tears his hair,
        Bill Maher laments, “It’s just not fair.”
        Dave Letterman begins to pout.
        They’ve heard that Herman Cain is out.
        In common with his late-night peers,
        Jon Stewart comes quite close to tears.
        He’d much prefer a case of gout
        To hearing Herman Cain is out.
        “The man is threatening our jobs,”
        Says Leno, as he softly sobs.
        From Colbert tears begin to spout.
        He’s heard that Herman Cain is out.
        They pray together, on their knees:
        “Could we have Donald Trump back—please?”
    ----

9.
  
Newt Redux
    Cain’s nod might go to Gingrich, it was said.
    Yes, Gingrich, who had once been left for dead.
    Improbably, he’d lived to fight again—
    A star on Fox and even CNN.
    Debating, Gingrich pleased the hard-right bloc—
    They thought that he would clean Obama’s clock—
    Although the more religious folks all thought he
    Had, very much like Cain, been awfully naughty.
    (Both wives Newt cheated on and left were sick;
    He’d shown the moral standards of a tick.)
    By colleagues in the House Newt had been branded:
    He’d been the only Speaker reprimanded.
    He’d always found consistency constricting—
    A man about whom there was no predicting.
    So instantly the pooh-bahs fairly shouted
    That choosing Newt could get the party routed.
    Who knew if everyone had heard the last
    Embarrassment in such a checkered past?
    What lunacy could possibly induce
    The folks to choose a cannon quite that loose?
    With all his faults, which backers would admit,
    Newt’s great appeal was this: He wasn’t