Free Dogfight by Calvin Trillin Page B

thought few party loyalists disputed:
    The Mitt campaign just had to be rebooted.
    ----
         A Rallying Cry from the Romney Camp
    Amid Discord, Romney Seeks to Sharpen Message on His Agenda
    —New York Times
headline
        We’ve got to go now hell for leather.
        We’ve got to get our act together,
        ’Cause even right-wing pundits say
        That this campaign’s in disarray.
        We must confess it’s such a mess
        We find it difficult to press
        Our message that this country needs
        A man who’s proven by his deeds
        That he can turn a firm around,
        That he is someone who’s renowned
        For skills in management writ large.
        But wait: That’s who we’ve got in charge.
    ----
    The next misstep the party would bemoan
    Was made by Mitt entirely on his own.
    While on the coast of Florida in May,
    Behind closed doors he’d managed to convey
    A stark contempt, as if he were Ayn Rand,
    For nearly half the people in the land.
    They paid no income tax, he said, and should
    Be written off as wed to victimhood.
    He’d not engage, he said, in the futility
    Of urging them to take responsibility
    For their own lives, because they’d never do it.
    It would be wasted effort to pursue it.
    A camera was there, behind some fern.
    (One wonders: Will these people never learn?)
    The tape was aired. A firestorm began,
    Diverting Mitt from his rebooting plan.
    And even party loyalists were shaken:
    Some thought they might as well have run Todd Akin.
    The press said this was truly Mitt, denuded.
    The group he’d cruelly written off included
    Some people whose support he most desired—
    Say, wounded vets and old folks who’d retired.
    And some, with payroll tax they do submit,
    Were paying at a higher rate than Mitt.
    ----
         I’ve Got the Mitt Thinks I’m a Moocher, a Taker Not a Maker, Blues
        
(Sung by three members of the 47 percent)
        Well, I work two jobs and that makes for a kinda long day.
        And the boss deducts the payroll tax that I’ve gotta pay.
        With sales tax, too, I kinda thought I was paying my dues.
        I’ve got the Mitt thinks I’m a moocher, a taker not a maker, blues.
        Well, the wife and I took retirement some years ago.
        And social security accounts for most of our dough.
        Though we contributed to that so we’d have it there to use.
        I’ve got the Mitt thinks I’m a moocher, a taker not a maker, blues.
        Well I went to ’Nam while Mitt went on his mission to France.
        A buddy needed rescuin’ and I thought, “Well, I’ll take a chance.”
        A wounded-vet pension’s not the salary that I would choose.
        I’ve got the Mitt thinks I’m a moocher, a taker not a maker, blues.
        (All, in chorus)
        Yes, he thinks we’re bums, and work is something we would refuse.
        Entitlements, he says, are what we just live to abuse.
        With his fat cat friends what he says about us is
j’accuse.
        So some of us moochers would sure like to see him lose.
        We’ve got the Mitt thinks that we’re moochers, takers and not makers, blues.
    ----
    It was, some said, the worst campaign week ever—
    And one that could torpedo Mitt’s endeavor.
    The problem that the swing-state polls defined:
    The race was close, but Romney was behind;
    While Romney’s share of swing-state polls was sinking,
    The “undecided” slice of polls was shrinking.
    Some party chiefs were daunted by Mitt’s lag.
    They’d once thought that they had this in the bag.
    Some right-wing commentators were aghast.
    They said that something had to change—and fast.

29.
  
Falling Back
    Amidst all this, Mitt Romney could at least
    Refer to turmoil in the Middle East
    As one example illustrating how
    Stability and long-term peace is now
    In that sad region further out of reach
    Than when Obama gave his Cairo speech.
    Mitt said we’d