(The following imagined exchange was inspired by Woody Allen’s “The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers.” Our story begins the day after the New Hampshire primary.)
My Dear Bergman: I could hardly believe it this morning when I awoke to the news that your candidate, Hillary Clinton, was inadvertently left off most New Hampshire primary ballots save for a smattering of unincorporated hamlets in Coos County. Although I have seen no news reports saying the same, I make the assumption based upon the returns, which had her finishing only slightly ahead of Lincoln Chafee and a write-in candidate named Twitch, who I’m told is a retired semi-professional wrestler.
One would think, based on the outcome, that the good secretary skipped campaigning in the state altogether, but the overwhelming scent of corruption fouling every nook of our once-pristine landscape proves otherwise.
I know that as a superdelegate you pledged undying loyalty to your Wall Street overlord, but I’m sure that even you cannot turn a deaf ear to the emphatic voice of the voters. Luckily for you, there’s plenty of room on the Sanders bandwagon. Climb aboard and feel the Bern, as the kids say.
Sincerely,
Coopersmith
****
My dearest Coopersmith: I just read your dispatch, and I must say that it hardly comes as a shock that you were unable to stay awake to see the final returns of last night’s aberration. I assume that, like the addled communist from Burlington who has your misguided support, you turned in at 7:30 sharp after eating, with a shaking hand, a bowl of oatmeal and slice of melon.
Allow me to recap what you missed: While it is true that Secretary Clinton didn’t emerge with the most votes, it should hardly come as a surprise that a politician from a neighboring state (even one as irrelevant as Vermont) would do well here. Once you factor in his stump speech promises of wealth redistribution and immortality, his primary win becomes not so much a revelation as a suitably executed long con.
And while there’s no doubt plenty of room on the Sanders bandwagon, I prefer to travel with gainfully employed people who have developed the habit of showering daily.
As a superdelegate, I will join tradition and unite with the state’s delegation at the convention. If the nominee happens to be Sanders, I will certainly attempt to stand with him before the lot of us are trampled by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Yours,
Bergman
****
Dear Bergman: It was not without a significant amount of head-scratching that I read your letter this morning. While you claim to have intellectually absorbed the historic trouncing unleashed upon the Wicked Witch of Westchester by Sen. Sanders, you act as though your vote as a superdelegate is somehow still up in the air. How delightful it must be to live in your fantastical world, where rules dictated by common sense and proper human behavior don’t apply and can be discarded without care.
Nevertheless, I’m sure that long before July’s convention you will emerge from your alternate reality, where a second-rate first lady could lead the New Hampshire delegate count despite not finishing within 55,000 votes of the winner.
However, if you and the inscrutable menagerie of party elites to whom you pledge allegiance choose to cling to the myth of a legitimate Clinton candidacy, you will at the very least be able to claim ownership of the destruction of the most revered political system in the history of the world. I always knew you had it in you.
Best,
Coopersmith
****
Dear Coopersmith: Although you are no doubt suffering bouts of vertigo while trying to make heads or tails of your simple-minded socialist’s budget math, I can’t help but be baffled at your lack of reading comprehension.
As my letter clearly stated, I will, come the Philadelphia convention, stand with the delegation. While long-dead Colonel Sanders has a better chance at the nomination than your snide septuagenarian, I should gladly support him if he emerges from his commune (slowly and with tremendous effort, as he emerges from everything) the leader of a party to which he doesn’t even belong.
I will leave it at that, short and sweet, as I know you must be hard at work battling the now widespread perception that your candidate is an unholy mash-up of unrelated Marx brothers Karl and Zeppo. I don’t envy the task.
Yours,
Bergman
****
Dear Bergman: If the scrambled prose of your last letter didn’t carry with it the offset “e” owing to the age and inferior quality of your Smith Corona, I would surmise that a petulant preschooler or John Podesta had made you the latest victim of identity theft.
Any sane person not under the spell of a calculating Goldwater Girl would realize that the role of a superdelegate is to reflect the will of the voters, not that of an unabashed shill for Goldman Sachs.
I must say, however, that I found your Marx brothers crack, although unoriginal, comical nonetheless. I would not be so easy to laughter with your neo-conservative warmonger in the White House, however. It has been said she is so far to the right on foreign policy that she must commandeer the Hubble to catch a glimpse of John McCain’s positions.
That statement, too, would be worthy of a chuckle if not in such close proximity to the truth.
But enough of this. It’s clear to me that you and I are a long way from detente and would perhaps be better served by shifting the conversation to our summer trip to Philadelphia. In the interest of saving money, I hope you will consider sharing a hotel room.
Awaiting your reply,
Coopersmith
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Dear Coopersmith: I agree that with today separated from July by so many pages of the calendar, it makes all the sense in the world to redirect our correspondence toward more practical matters.
To share a suite with you would be my honor, especially in that it would provide you with the long-delayed opportunity to, by paying for our room, cover a bet you lost eight years ago. Just so there is no confusion, Dennis Kucinich was not elected president in 2008.
Sincerely,
Bergman
****
Dear Bergman: Double or nothing?
Hopefully,
Coopersmith
(Dana Wormald can be reached at dwormald@cmonitor.com.)