with apologies to Dr Seuss

Salmon Rushdie - Jan. 2001


Every Vote down in Voteville liked Voting a Lot,
But the GRINCH, who lived West of Voteville,
did Not.
For Voting was Counting - not just Adding and such
But finding out if you Amounted to Much.
In this case, the question was, who, in a pinch,
Amounted to More? Did the Veep? Or the Grinch?

The Veep! What a creep!
What a CREEP! CREEP! CREEP! CREEP!
He simply could NOT be outdone by the Veep.

But the Veep was Experienced.
He'd done the big jobs,
He was smart. (He was smart-ass.)
He knew all the knobs
And the levers and buttons
that worked the State's Ship
And the Grinch?
Well, re: knowledge he was not too hip.
The President of India? The economy? Pass.
He'd never been close to the head of the class.

So far the poor Grinch hadn't Amounted to zip,
He just hadn't Counted. It gave him the pip.
(His father! His eminent Dad! His own blood!
Compared to him, Grinchy had proved quite a dud.)

And now that he'd actually reached his Big Day
Argh! Counting the Ballots could steal it away!

And what was a Ballot? Was it silver or gold?
Were they counting up treasure? A fortune untold?
No! Just some dumb punch-card!
They were counting up holes!
Oh, the holes! Yes, the holes!
Oh, the HOLES! HOLES! HOLES! HOLES!
The whole thing depended on Circles of Air -
Not to mention the half-holes,
and holes that weren't there,
But that wanted to be there,
and thought that was fair.

All they would do was to add up! To Count!
And they'd count! And they'd count!
And they'd COUNT! COUNT! COUNT! COUNT!
And they'd probably end up with a Quite Wrong Amount!
"If they go on counting,"
the Grinch shuddered, "Eep!"
"They may just wind up electing the Veep!"

"How to stop it?" the Grinch exclaimed with a moan
And then he remembered he wasn't alone.
There were Grinches all over,
big Grinches and small,
There were Grinches in Voteville
and in City Hall,
He knew some news-Grinches,
and he could depend
On these inky fellows to shape and to bend
Their stories to help him win through in the end.

But the Grinches who'd give him
the edge and the win
Were the great Legal Grinches,
and Grinches of Spin.

So he called on his cohorts.
"My friends, we must Grinch
This election! 'Nuff Counting!
Get to work! Do not flinch!
We must Grinch! We must Grinch!
We must GRINCH! GRINCH! GRINCH! GRINCH!
We cannot be beaten by circles of air
Or circles that only imagine they're there.
Every day that they Count them, the total will creep
Up and up, until it elects that old Veep!"

So they Grinched the election.
They Grinched, day by day,
Until all the options were whittled away.
They Grinched it with lawyers,
they Grinched it with writs,
They split all the hairs
and they picked all the nits,
And when it came up to the Ultimate Bench
They Grinched it away with one final Wrench.
They ordered all Voteville to give up its Count,
Before it came up with that Quite Wrong Amount.

And the Votes down in Voteville?
They've run out of steam.
'Tis the season to party, to heal and to dream.
Why worry? The Constitution is strong,
The judges who judge it can never be wrong,
The Veep may have won, but he's lost.
And that's that.
Voteville accepts the high judges' fiat.
There isn't a holler, there isn't a scream,
Think of the dollar! Let's play for the team!
So everyone okays the Grinch's régime,
And things are probably
probably
probably
probably
probably
Not as bad as they seem.

"Four whole years of Grinchdom!"
the Grinch cries with glee
"There's Only One Person who Counts now
...That's
ME."


(the Guardian)