For the Terminally and Willfully

Friends, Democrats, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come not to bury Wellstone, but to endorse Mondale.
The elections that men win live after them;
The ones they lose are oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Wellstone.
Our party is nothing if not ambitious:
If it were to lose control of the Senate, would be a grievous fault,
And grievously Wellstone trailed in the polls.
Here, under leave of Clinton and the rest–
For Clinton is an honourable man;
Clinton, Kennedy, McAuliffe, Lautenberg;
So are they all, all honourable men (ha ha!)–
Let this not be Wellstone’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But internal polling data says he was going to lose;
And winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
No, therefore, let us rally for Mondale, his successor,
And bring him great victory.
He hath proposed the taxes greatly to increase
Whose ransoms will the general coffers fill:
When that the special interests have cried,
Mondale hath wept with them:
Is this not how the game is played?
Ambition should be made of stern stuff:
And, brother, are we ever ambitious;
Daschle is an honourable man.
You all did see that on C-SPAN
Jim Jeffords presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did did not refuse: now that is ambition, baby!
Yet Daschle says he is not ambitious (who doth he fool?);
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to eulogize poor, dead Wellstone,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You want to keep control of the Senate, right?
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for Wellstone
When you can be out working for a Mondale victory!
Bag the funeral and let’s have a rally!
My heart is not in the coffin there with Wellstone,
For I must vote early and often for Mondale.