Have a question? Need some advice? Ignored by everyone else? Send us your questions via email. The Non-Expert handles all subjects and is updated on Fridays, and is written by a member of The Morning News staff.
 

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Question: How are you supposed to choose between the candidates when all the news reports only talk about HOW the races are GOING, not WHAT they’re ABOUT? I am not looking for poetry, but some straight facts on the candidates’ policy ideas or beliefs. Come on I would think you guys would be equally upset or MORE about how America is being hijacked by BIG MEDIA and the PARTIES behind the politics. —Stephen Kanter
 
 Answer: With thanks to E.E. Cummings’s “Buffalo Bill’s,” Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” and William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow”

Michigan Mitt’s

Michigan Mitt ’s
 triumphed
            who always
            sports some stallionmane’s-silver
                                                                   sideburns
 and beats onetwothreefourfive republicansjustlikethat
                                                                                                               Joseph Smith
 
 he is a handsome man
            and what I want to know is
 how do you like your blackhaired boy
 Mister Death Penalty

The Vote Not Shaken

Two votes diverged in a metal booth,
 And sorry I could not stand for both
 And be one voter, I became a sleuth
 And Googled one to find the truth
 About whether she’d spur economic growth;
 
 Then Googled the other, just to be fair,
 He had perhaps the better chance,
 Because he was young, with hope and
 flair;
 Though also not that into prayer.
 
 I suspect they shared that stance,
 And both that primary equally blessed
 One a woman and one black.
 White male candidates must be stressed!
 They couldn’t even take the Midwest.
 
 I cast my vote and didn’t look back.
 It was at least worth a try.
 But honestly, I’m still kind of on the fence:
 Two votes diverged in a metal booth, and I—
 I picked the super charismatic guy,
 And it didn’t make that much difference.

The Red Ohio

so much depends
 upon
 
 a red O
 hio
 
 crazed with vain
 chatter
 
 beside the right
 talking heads