“I just need 11,000 votes.”
“Give me a break.”
Sounds eerily like saying to my daddy,
when I was just a wee lassie,
“I just need $5.00.”
And my Republican dad would reply,
“And I need a hole in my head!”
And that was the end to that.
Because, I had sense
to know when the game was up,
to know I had lost,
to know I was on my own.
And because, I knew I could do
what I needed to do on my own
I’d get on with life and make it great.
I did not need fawning crowds
shouting hateful slogans aloud
at my Dad, who was right to deny
my weak-kneed pleas to ease my need
for the latest toy, candy, or cookie delight.
My Republican dad believed
in working his way using his labor and mind
to put food on our table and a roof overhead.
He did not run scams on neighbors
nor friends, nor even total strangers.
My Republican dad, whose Democratic friends
exchanged ideas with him every day
on how to keep our nation great
kept an open mind and used it to find solutions
to unite and expand everyone’s rights
to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;
especially, for his children and theirs.
My Republican dad would be turning in his grave.
A conscience stronger than partisanship
would not let him accept such gamesmanship.
I can hear his response to election deniers,
whining while shouting, debased town-criers,
“You talk like a man with a paper hat!”
And that, folks, would be that!
annarino writes 