Cicada's last scream/echoes an empty debate/straw poll is broken

Nobody can confuse politics with poetry these days, but the quasi-Darwinian free-for-all that we call the modern presidential primary system has at least spawned one minor – oh, so very minor – art form: The “bye-ku.” This is a takeoff on the traditional Japanese haiku, the miniature poetic form that aims to capture the essence of a subject within the discipline of a three-line, 5-7-5-syllable scheme.

You may recall that in the 2004 election cycle, James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal created a “bye-ku” as each presidential wannabe dropped out of the race. Actually, Taranto got the idea from former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who in October 2003 announced he would not run for reelection to Parliament by composing this haiku:

With dusk yet to come
Cicada persists in song
While it still has life

Oblique, perhaps, but far more elegant than, say, “You won’t have Nakasone to kick around anymore.” Taranto was so impressed that he wrote this farewell to the first major dropout from the Oval Office sweepstakes, Florida’s Bob Graham:

9:50 p.m.:
Apply scalp medication
Drop out of race

Not long afterward came Dick Gephardt:

Whoops, I said Bush was
A miserable failure
Turns out I meant me

Then there was this classic for Howard Dean:

He raged and he screamed
Then lingered long enough to
End with a whimper

Well, Taranto’s at it again with the 2008 crop of candidates. You may not have even realized that former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore was bidding for the GOP nomination, but he was – until he dropped out last weekend because he couldn’t raise enough cash. Here’s his bye-ku:

Is he still alive?
We thought he was killed by a
Utah firing squad

Uh, for the record, that’s Gary Gilmore, the first prisoner executed after capital punishment was reinstated in the mid-1970s.
This has potential, folks. Maybe the political parties should require each candidate to write his or her own poetic farewell when dropping out. Of course, in Joe Biden’s case it would be an epic ballad instead of a haiku. Better yet, why leave the field to Taranto? Compose your own bye-kus for the candidates. With nearly two dozen in the field, the possibilities are virtually limitless. And don’t forget, George W. Bush has a bye-ku or two coming, too …