Elizabeth Dole

deadline poet

By Calvin Trillin

This article appeared in the April 29, 2002 edition of The Nation.

April 11, 2002

Get set again for Liddy Dole.
She's back, to let the good times roll.
She's entering another race,
Her hair and diction all in place.
(Her hair is even more precise
Than that of Condoleezza Rice.)
Her problem is that she's been cast
As someone with a Beltway past.
Although she's Carolina bred,
She left her home to get ahead.
And now they say her luggage tag
Says DC--on a carpetbag.
"But ahm from heah," she'll say to all.
She'll say it in a Tarheel drawl.
The drawl alone should do the trick,
Unless she lays it on too thick--
Unless the voters say, in candor,
"We simply cannot understand her."

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About Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin is The Nation's "deadline poet." He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963 and has written the syndicated weekly column "Uncivil Liberties" since 1986. He has authored many, many books, including Tepper's Not Going Out and Deadline Poet: My Life as a Doggerelist. more...
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