As you all might imagine, I’ve been in mourning today. In fact, I’ve been mourning all afternoon and evening. (Boom! We’re off and rolling with the first dad joke of the column.)
In a very short time, we’ve lost four Democrat candidates, and I know what you all are thinking: good riddance to bad collectivists! But put yourselves in my shoes. I’m in the leftist-mocking business, and in the twinkle of an eye, I’ve lost four amazing targets.
Okay, so Amy Klobuchar wasn’t that much of a target. She was just too bland. She had all of the charisma of a young Nancy Pelosi, and all the sex appeal of an old Nancy Pelosi. Her most exciting public moment was the sparring she did with Mayor Pete in a debate – and that’s not exactly Ali-Frasier in the sparring fireworks department.
Her most exciting non-public moments were those times when she lost her temper and threw binders at her underlings, which makes for a hilarious mental image. Also, any goofballs who willingly became staffers for Amy freaking Klobuchar – I’m picturing a Prius-driving millennial with a co-exist bumper sticker on one side and a “I’m with Her” sticker on the other – deserve anything they get, up to and including metal-ring-shaped indentations in the temple and short term memory loss.
In keeping with my tradition, here is my farewell haiku for Amy Klobuchar.
You could have chucked a
Binder into Bernie’s skull
On stage! Missed chance, girl!
We also lost Mayor Pete, the judge-iest Christian in a party that hates Christianity. On paper, he looked like a formidable candidate amongst this crop of Dems: his youth means that he is not likely to die of natural causes before the election, he has a little military experience, and his gayness almost cancels out his hideous white male-ness. He has an Ivy League education, and is noticeably smarter than the front-runners – though yes, that’s a bar so low that even Bloomberg would have to duck his head to get under.
On the downside, at Harvard he apparently double- majored in Content-less Answers and Glittering Generalities, with a minor in Smarmy Entitlement, and there’s a reason that no president in history has gone straight from small-town mayor to the White House.
Here’s Pete’s haiku:
Is being gay a
Qualification for prez?
No? Oops. Nevermind.
Then came Munchkin Mike Bloomberg, and I’ll admit that I’ve got mixed feelings about this loss. There was something delicious about the idea of watching leftist class warriors being forced to hold their noses and vote for an arrogant, white, male rich guy, if he would have gotten the nomination. And he was so thin-skinned and clueless! At a town hall a regular guy pointed out that Mike is surrounded by bodyguards armed with the very kinds of guns that he wants to deny to regular people, and the guy asked if Bloomberg’s life is worth more than ours?
I’ve never even run for class president, but even I know that the right answer at least starts with, “Of course not!” But Google Mike’s answer, and prepare to be dazzled, because he basically says, “I get tons of death threats because I’m very powerful and super-rich, unlike nobodies like you, so don’t be ridiculous. Next question?”
I assumed that Bloomberg’s vast pile of cash would at least buy him into a contending position, so it was pretty satisfying to watch him spend half a billion dollars and get 8 more delegates than I’ve got, after spending zero dollars. And no offense American Samoa, but if you pull out your copy of Famous American Political Quotes, volumes 1 through 124, and look for, “As American Samoa goes, so goes America,” you are not going to find it.
But I have one completely personal reason for celebrating Bloomberg’s departure from the race. As I mentioned in my last column, I was running very short (HA!) on little person jokes, so a durable Bloomberg campaign would have been tough for me. How tough?
So far, all I had was Bloomberg in the VP candidate slot standing next to Biden outside a convention center, as they waited for Trump to arrive for a debate. As Air Force One breaks through the clouds, Bloomberg raises one arm and excitedly points, saying, “Ze plane, boss! Ze plane!”
That’s right. The best I had was a timely Fantasy Island/Tattoo joke. Yikes! Thank God Mike is out!
Here’s Mike’s haiku:
Tone deaf billionaire?
For Dems? Stand up, Mike. Oh, you
Are standing? Gulp. Nope!
As you might guess, the hardest loss for me is the departure of the Pequod Prevaricator, Grandma Squanto. After years – and many dozens of columns – worth of good clean fun, it might finally be time to replace #wemustneverstopmockingher with #wemightsoonhavetostopmockingher. I know. It feels strange to even think that we may no longer have Liz Warren to kick around any more. Or to count coup on, as the case may be.
What are we going to do when we need an authentic Oklahoman crab dish recipe? From whom are we going to learn how to grow maize, and thus survive the harsh winter of 2020/2021?
One of my favorite things about her campaign was watching all of her attacks backfire on her. She attacked Trump on various grounds, but he trolled her into making a fool of herself with her DNA test. She attacked Bernie as a sexist, but she got backlash over that. She attacked Mike because of his business success, and because he’s as pro-abortion as every other Dem contender, and her poll numbers dropped. She wanted to be a political killer, but all of her attacks seemed to wound only herself.
In other words, she dreamed of being a Homicidal Huron, but discovered that she was nothing but a Suicidal Sioux. Cue the sad trombone/peace pipe duet.
Her farewell haiku is a series of instructions:
Wipe off that war paint.
Drink an unconvincing beer.
Pack up your teepee!
I’ll have a few thoughts on the titanic Battle of the Ancient White Guy Survivors on Monday, but in the meantime, consider this: Bernie Sanders is a ranting old commie loon, and Joe Biden doesn’t know where he is or what he’s saying. Yet every fallen Dem candidate has to look into a mirror every day, and say these words:
“In a nation with millions of leftist voters, a large majority of those voters would rather vote for Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden than for me.”
Ouch!
Avenatti/None of the Above, 2020!
Martin Simpson 