Dispatches from the front part 3: food for thought

From CNN:
"In projecting what a Hillary Clinton presidency would look like, there is the conundrum of her senatorial tenure and what had appeared to be a surcease in her Pavlovian resort to trench warfare: a period in which -– until the day drew near for her to announce her presidential candidacy –- she seemed (to her oldest friends, certainly) happier and more at ease, and straightforward in her public dealings, and less guarded, than at any point in her life since she followed Bill Clinton to Arkansas."

From Newsweek:
"In 2006, when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Indonesia, you spoke about America's overbearing foreign policy. How is America doing now? {sic} You [the United States] are white. You are Christian. You are rich. Your technology is superior. All of these countries are not … It's a phenomenon Americans cannot understand.

If you could vote as part of the American global polity, who would you vote for?
Right now? I would vote for Obama. I think he has this message of decency, of fairness, of transcending racial hatred, which cuts across all countries, all nations."


From Slate:
"if the white working class's interest in "guns or religion" indicates derangement or bitterness, then the white working class isn't very deranged or bitter. According to Bartels, there is no evidence that social issues outweigh economic ones among white voters lacking college degrees."