The Candidate [limerick]

My excitement at the news that Senator Chris Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, is considering a bid for president in 2008 is easy to explain: his name has enormous rhyming potential.
        Calvin Trillin (Name That Candidate)

There once was a Senator named Dodd
who sprang from Connecticut's sod
it seemed to him evident
he ought to be President
(there was no election for God)

Chris Dodd is indubitably mod
which would seem -- in a Senator -- most odd
the remark of one pundit
was germane (though redundant?)
when he mentioned Abe Lincoln unshod

Abe Lincoln was thinkin' or drinkin'
or winkin' or inkin' or blinkin'
or (rarely this) stinkin'
or (God forfend) kinkin'
or (doggerel's vice) kitchen-sinkin'

while Dodd was nor stodgy nor awed
by the reel & the line & the cod
a fisher of rivers
his name could reel shivers
from a chillin' Cal Trillins by God!

But Connecticut has a Lincoln in Chafee
whose rhyming potential seems iffy
if Dodd became President
would Chafee stay resident
as a Senator from Connecticut? by jiffy

Trillin worries o'er a second Prez Clinton
but my glasses find rosey-hue tintin'
the rhymes that I'm mintin'
are gleamin' & glintin'
mayn't Hillary make a killery of such a stintin'?

But if Hill were opposed by Condoleeza
in a contest to choose the Big Cheesa
would mush'-cloud hyperbole
pepperoni the herbery
of discouerse? who'd win the big pizza?

When we ponder the plight of Al Gore
Trillin's cavils unravel and more
he's got guts now for glory
while the lore of Earth's story
could equal and sequel the war

But to Dodd we return: what's the odds?
in a world that grew weary of old gods
would the new gen soon smile?
could the candidate beguile
by delivering his rap to their iPods?

Now the candidate stood tall as a rod
although tortuous the trail that he trod
could he prove that the White House
was really the right house?
Mrs. Dodd would become the First Broad

Though it's true that there looms the God rhyme
there remains (prithee note) the clod grime
the bod prime ticks as well
the bad rhymenics?   oh well
oceanic still whelms the broad brine

In its balance of powers   the Trinity
theologians deem triune divinity
the legislature & executive
& judicial ain't consecutive!
could a Prez Dodd be one-third infinity?

There once was a candidate Eugene
V. Debs -- y'know the last time he ran
for President of the land
he was a prisoner -- and
a million votes he received in the clink

A much later Eugene was McCarthy
he ran five times for President! Are the
also-rans merely footnotes?
Is the history of lost votes
evolution's extinct-fossil aarti?

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aarti (Skt.): rite of worship, homage