Richard Fernandez, at the Belmont Club, posted a thread titled A Real Horse Race, describing the surge by Scott Brown against Martha Coakley in Massachusetts.  I posted the following under my Belmont Club handle Walt:

 

In Boston town of liberal fame

A Coakley kiss protects the flame

But voters turn the smile to frown

As Boston beans are done-up Brown

 

This was answered by Buddy Larsen, a commenter from Texas, who wrote, under his Belmont Club handle Mongo BL Santamaria:

 

A limerick awaits to be spun

With Martha and Annie and gun

Where Oakley the shooter

And Coakley the looter

In line five rhyme in time for the pun

 

Encouraged by the invitation to complete the limerick, I replied:

 

A limerick awaits to be spun

With Martha and Annie and gun

Where Oakley the shooter

And Coakley the looter

Are here for five lines and then done

 

I then carried the carnage further by adding:

 

The difference ‘tween Martha and Ann

Can be seen in the races they ran

Can Annie’s bay horses

Beat Martha’s Dem forces

It be hooves us to think that they can

 

With shooters like Annie in town

And Coakley’s poll numbers way down

The prez and his crew

Are now changing their hue

As their blue state is turning to Brown

 

Thus challenged, Mongo responded with a deft thrust of the sword, in lower case, as is his wont when channeling Don Marquis and Mehitabel the cat:

 

oh lo the po mongo

who tap on his bongo

too near the walt in his lair

for soon to emerge in a syncopate surge

of bass drum and tom-tom and snare

 

The contest was over. Smiling, Mongo doffed his hat, jauntily waved his muleta and stepped coolly over the blood in the sand, to be awarded both ears and the tail, to the cheers of the adoring crowd.

 

Moral: Don’t mess with Texas.