Someone, now I forget who, sent me this little ditty in the wake of Barack Obama’s election victory in 2012.
The election is over,
The talking is done.From CarStickers.com
Your party lost.
My party won.So let us be friends,
Let arguments pass.
I’ll hug your elephant,
If you kiss my ass.
I wondered who wrote it. My handwritten note says whoever sent it to me said they got it off the internet.
Who needs plagiarism with the WorldWide Web? The usual tendencies to attribute witty or snarky sayings to famous people, and to strip actual authorship, get huge boosts from the internet. Mark Twain said a good lie could get around the Earth seven times before truth gets its boots on — with the internet, the lies, falsehoods and lack-of-appropriate attribution pieces fly at the speed of electronic interchange, near the speed of light but for the copper in the wires.
Here, a couple of years later, it could come into use again. Have I learned any more about who wrote it? Not really. I looked, and didn’t find an authoritative version with an author’s name attached, which looks to be final.
From Etsy and ThinkOutLoudApparel.
This version claims to come from 1972, and the re-election of Richard Nixon:
The election is over, the results are now known,
The will of the people has clearly been shown.Let’s all get together and show by our deeds,
That we will give Dick all the help that he needs.Let bygones by bygones and all bitterness pass,
I’ll hug your elephant if you kiss my ass.
Still no author; from 2004:
The election is over, the results are now known.
The will of the people has clearly been shown.
We should show by our thoughts and our words and our deeds
That unity is just what our country now needs.
Let’s all get together. Let bitterness pass.
I’ll hug your elephant.
You kiss my ass.
We might assume it’s been around at least since Nixon’s second election then. I’ll wager it goes back farther into the recesses of history.
But does anyone know for sure? It’s been around long enough to have made the leap to bumperstickers, and other political paraphernalia.
Help us out in comments, if you have information.
[Update December 2020]
Handwritten note suggesting the poem comes no later than 1956; sadly, note comes from the wallet of a murder victim. History Nebraska blog
From Kaboodle.com
[Editor’s note: What was the image from Kaboodle.com, that is now no longer available there? December 2020]
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Mr. Calhoun, was that poem from Nebraska History the site you were trying to link to?
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Ouch! See what? If you were posting a link, Mr. Calhoun, it got cut off. Come back and tell us what the link was, please!
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The poem dates back at least back to 1952 or 1956; see
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Never saw this, but I’m happily spreading it now! :)
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Oh, excellent point, and I hope I didn’t give the opposite impression.
Do poetry digests even exist in print form anymore? Is there any hope of tracking down the origins of such a piece without either the superior paywall-smashing backing of a large newspaper, or an excellent librarian with a penchant for rhyme?
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Not to disparage your efforts, but searching the internet does not constitute research, as I have told generations of students. Of course, not every question merits research.
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