FARMINGTON - In 1992, Farmington Corner recorded hordes of presidential primary politicians stamping around New Hampshire in the frost and snow, leaving no sound bite unspoken, and no photo op with an unsuspecting old codger in a diner unseized. Back then, the testy Mr. Ramgunshoch, invoking his country’s revered poet, Robert Burns, launched a public poetry contest on the irritating phenomenon.

In 2007, though, things have turned as wacky as the weather. Instead of arriving this coming October, droves of presidential aspirants and their spouses, managers, schedulers and pollsters have been snuffing around the state for weeks, already, getting under people’s feet.

Thus the enraged old Scot, rather than rely on poetic barbs being churned out by others, has just let zip with an address, himself, along traditional lines.

In 1795, not long before his death, and at a time of enormous suffering for many Scottish people, Burns wrote a series of election ballads highly supportive of a Whig friend, Mr. Patrick Heron, and savaging the Tory slate so favored by rich aristocrats.

Ramgunshoch felt it was his obligation to humanity to channel Burns, and pen the very lines the Bard would have written, after eying up what paltry fare is on offer to New Hampshire’s voters, so far, in the First-in-the-Nation 2008 Primary.

Like Burns, Ramgunshoch has couched his lines in the auld Scots tongue, Lallans, and so I have appended a short glossary of his more obscure words.

Glossary: Trogging - n 1. Bartering, bargaining; odds and ends; rubbishy goods, insubstantial trash; worthless specimens, riff-raff; nefarious or illicit dealings

Aff – off; aye – always; braw - fine; ca’d – called; gie – give; gin – if; mair – more; micht – might; muckle – big; nane – none; noo – now; nyaff - a small yappy person; pettifogger – a quibbling lawyer; wha – who.

Wha will buy my trogging?

Fine election ware;

Broken trade of hucksters,

All in high repair.

That Grand Auld Dukie John McCain,

Wants 40,000 men,

He’ll mairch them a’ aff tae Iraq,

An’ ask for mair again.

Hillary voted for the war,

But noo she is agin it,

Ah’m sure she’ll mak anither switch,

Gin ye gie her jist a minute.

Barack Obama’s fans think he’s

A superstar and a’,

But twa years in the Senate, fie,

They’re clutching at a straw.

John Edwards’ slippit doon the polls,

The puir, wee pettifogger,

Catholics ootraged left and right

Sin’ he engaged a blogger.

Joe Biden’s ca’d Obama lad,

Articulate and braw,

A muckle credit tae his race,

The first he’s ever saw.

Giuliani, ye’ll recall,

Took charge at yon Ground Zero,

But them wi’ asbestosis, noo,

Micht no think him a hero.

Kuchinich is the Prince o’ Peace

Tho’ hawks say he’s a nyaff,

There’s aye a chance, if he should win,

They’ll try tae bump him aff.

Some think Al Gore micht join the race

Wi’ global warming prayer,

There’s nane can match his current spiel,

He’s the maister o’ hot air.

There’s Vilsack, Dodds and Richardson,

Brownback and Huckabee,

Romney, Gravel, Hunter, Cox,

And anither twenty-three!

Wha will buy my trogging?

Fine election ware;

Broken trade of hucksters,

All in high repair.

Feb. 11, 2007

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