Political Koans for the Candidates of 2004

"All great men don't become president, and all presidents are not great men."

—Willard Sterne Randall, Historian

Michael Dukakis

I'm one candidate who actually enjoyed
Fundraising and campaigning. Yes, this strikes
People as strange, but politicians must build
A grass roots support from the ground up—

Feel the flesh of those who will pay
To hold your face on a button,
Your name on a banner—holding you like caryatids
Bearing the weight to lift you up when

Your opponent hurls mud at your photo-op smile.
Those who believed in my candidacy begged me
To fight back against Bush's attacks; I didn't.
This you may not understand, but

Like Bill Clinton, I emerged as a Governor
In the mid seventies, only to lose re-election
But to win it back in 1982. When a Phoenix
Spirit runs through your veins, you're not afraid

Of fire building a mound of ashes at your feet.
Whose life did I fight to save?
How will a man running for office
Save his wife, his name and the glowing

Country resting in the distance, being swallowed
By the darkness; how, then, does this man conquer
The darkness as the glow of the country
And the shadows surrounding it grow indistinguishable?

A curtain might pull back revealing the light, defined
By the silhouette it strikes against a fallow backdrop.
I might then believe I can win: I'll tap the caryatid
On her back and take the weight, let it glow

In my hands. As the light from my land now bears down
On me, I'll look around, then claim the office—mine—
As I feel myself grow stronger under the hope—
As if it were a prayer, really—

Of a country believing enough in my shoulders
Just to call my name from their lips.

Lloyd Bentsen

In the wake of our campaign loss,
You ask what advice do I have

For John Kerry, another Massachusetts
Presidential candidate who searched for a

Running mate who wouldn't embarrass him.
Well, I'd tell him to listen

To how the country chooses to breathe.
Allow me to explain this notion. I see common things:

I see men in worn-soled shoes;
I see women with their hair wrapped

In scarves; I see serpentine lines
At Family Dollar stores; I see the word

War in headlines; I see shirts hanging
On clotheslines with frayed elbows;

I see women with knitted brows,
Instead of the beauty of their heads

Thrown back laughing; I see teens in schools
With eyes empty as homes

With broken windows. And as I see
These truths in the light of this country

Of my youth—the country in which I raise
My children and make love to my wife,

This country, all vulnerable and waiting, waiting—
I know the tough questions always need answers.

Did I ever cringe during my vice-presidential
Debate against Quayle? Not once.

I actually closed my eyes, however,
During the presidential debate. The moment

CNN's Bernard Shaw asked Dukakis,
Who, like myself, opposed the death penalty,

If he would change if his own wife, Kitty,
Were raped and murdered, I sighed deeply.

I didn't object to the question; the question reflected
What we needed, but, let's just say, I knew

The Dukakis repertoire of nonverbal behavior
Served him better for poker than inspiring a nation.

And America needed a man
Who could look strong with a tear in his eye.

Not that Bush emerged the man for this role,
But he could act.

And the voters who knew Jack Kennedy
And saw him shot, those who knew

Dr. King and saw him shot, those who knew
Protesters and saw them shot, those who knew

Nixon and saw him pardoned, these voters watched,
With their faces in their hands,

As the tough questions made our candidate not blink.
Now, you ask how would I have answered

That same question...