The Wisconsin Senate’s ride

With apologies to Longfellow

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the daylight ride of Democrats here,
On the seventeenth of Feb, in Two thousand eleven;
Hardly a tweeter now alive
Who doesn’t remembers that famous day and year.

The protesters said to their friends inside, “If the GOP calls for a vote
count the heads in that chamber to-night,
Keep a bus near the exit ramp
By the side of the steps where we setup our Amps,–
If down by One is what we see;
Then soon to a different state we’ll be,
Ready to ride to foil the plan
Through every village and farm,
For the Union folk to be up and to arm.”

When the count came and the number was known
Onto the bus the Democrats roamed,
The door it did shut and the clutch engaged,
and the waiting Greyhound its progress now made
The State police and Sgt at arms;
Not thinking the Dems would abandon so far
the job the did beg of the voters last qtr,
Through a franchise so dearly bought that they ought to
By their own acts surrender the quota.

Meanwhile, on the left ,through media and tweet
Combined with the Unions there on the street,
With classrooms abandoned and students a wanderin
As teachers threw their trash on the lawn there,
Denouncing the Hitler, the Mubarak of the west,
Who would dare with measured bill try to tread,
Upon the contracts keeping Union coffers fed.

As they climbed the stairs and the buses did roll,
An act by democrats once ‘fore foretold,
Done in Texas repeated up north,
And startled the voters and GOP force
On the somber ride did the dem senate make
Masses and moving shapes of shade,–
Keeping their profile considerably low,
To their presence, denying their foe,
Where they sent the police to listen and look down
A moment to see if they group could be found
Fore the collected members had all skipped town.

Along the highway did the bus roll,
Not heeding gas costs or prices of tolls,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That as the border to the state of Il,
The bus it rolled on with care and with skill
Creeping along now safely felt,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
Did the wheels of the bus go round and go round
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely hotel the group they did fled;
For suddenly to Rockford they plan was to stay
On a shadowy hotel far far away,
Where the voters just anger could be kept at bay,–
A 3 star resort where inside they could lay
Avoiding the tide of the voters just rage.

Meanwhile, impatient the vote on their mind,
Their colleagues sent officers the runners to find
To eschew their abandonment of responsibilities clear.
That the voters had sent them to exercise here,
But though they gazed at landscape far and near,
No sign of the Senators would now appear,
And turned they without hope to the dems pols quirk;
They tried to find with eager search
But yet as the officers of the law,
Their efforts though noble. continued to fall,
Lonely and spectral and somber and still.
And lo! as their failure reached it height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
The citizen army the teaparty strong,
Determined, connected. an uncommon storm
Took ‘pon them selves to right this great wrong.

A hurry of tweets, and Facebook chatter,
A beacon to tell all what was the matter,
And beneath, the radar of the media sly
And the unions determined to hide out those guys;
That was all! The call it was sent,
The fate of a State and their franchise was met;
For borders and boundaries and a bus drivers flight,
Can not confine the electronic might.
that had sent through their village, the army of Davids,
And beneath the unions and the plan broad and deep,
The word it got out and upon them it creeped;
And under the doors of the Clock Tower Resort,
Now soft on the heels their and their clever retorts,
Is heard the tramp of the teaparty force.

It was twelve by the village clock
When they found the Senate confined in their fort.
The camera did roll and the confrontation made,
And the democrats knew, twas the end of the game,
As tea party forces confront and combine,
The dems did regroup and repeat their old ride.

And like a man caught with a lass without ‘pute,
The dems did re-board seeking alternate route.
They saw the assembled teaparty forces
Their films distributed by Breitbarts large hoards there.
So their meeting-house was then now abandoned,
In hopes of finding a refuge more random,
As if they already stood aghast
At the work that they internet foiled and did crash.

Within a few hours the word was around,
That the prodigal legislatures indeed had been found.
They heard the bleating of the union flock,
That insisted the Governor was in fact in the wrong,
But the eyes of the nation had all now did see
And tweets and blog post did public soon read.
So no one was safe, not asleep in their beds
Had the voters obligingly laid down their heads,
No quantity of spin could now re-define,
What the tea party gave and the public did find.

You know the rest. Again they did roll
In the hopes of finding a more secure hole—
How the Governor called for them to come home,
To end their embarrassing of flights as they roamed,
And honor the voters choice in November,
and to their sworn duty asked them to remember
And as the sun set all here could now ponder,
The results of the Dems and their afternoon wanders.

So as was suggested by the great Jimmie Bise;
That the Union’s last move was not very much wise
But To every voter in village and farm,—
A cry of defiance of pocketbook harm,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of post and of tweet,
It is now their judgment that history seeks,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
Will the people waken and listen to hear
Will they decide that this act will cost cowards approval?
Or let them continue with business as usual?

Update:
And nothing for traffic does better enhance
Then to receive from the Blogfather an Instalanche