I live in Arkansas though my political interests extend well beyond my state.  My husband Max and I have entertained politicians and their faithful followers on many occasions. In the South we open our homes for such events with no thought of using restaurants, hotels or any other such impersonal locations.  It was Bill Clinton this morning for breakfast with an enthusiastic group of Hillary’s supporters.  The southern spin on the menu included sausages in puff pastry and creamy cheese grits.  We boxed food for the road as President Clinton moved on to south Arkansas rallies.

When I strolled recently in Harvard Yard with my daughter Paris, she reminded me that these ivy- covered brick buildings were not only where she had bunked as a freshman, but also where the American Revolutionary War troops had slept before there were polls or primaries, or even elections, or even American Presidents.  I feel the political history when I’m in Cambridge.  

My first memory of a Presidential election was the Nixon/ Kennedy race. 

I was  8-years-old and the rally song to the tune of “Whistle While You Work” told me everything I thought I needed to know about politics:

 
Whistle While You Work
Nixon is a Jerk
Eisenhower has no power
Kennedy’s going to work.

Not very clever come to think of it. My folks were liberal Democrats and Kennedy was their man.

One of the prostitutes who lived across the hall from my wife and me was the person who introduced us to the Honey Lounge, a working class bar across the street from the Prudential Center in Boston.  She and her pimp had apparently had a small disagreement about money and she hid out in our apartment while he pounded on her door and threatened to kill her.  The following night, their dispute resolved, they brought us a pizza as compensation for our kindness.  The pimp said it was from the Honey Lounge, the best pizza in the city.

The revolutionary notion first took shape at – and as a result of – the Wild Hog Supper, an annual tradition held each January at the cavernous Georgia Freight Depot, virtually in the shadow of the Gold Dome of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, to celebrate the onset of the first session of the Georgia General Assembly, otherwise jokingly referred to as our Legislature.

The solons who convened here in this lively atmosphere – immediately prior to Super Tuesday – were uniformly filled with the full flush of convivial spirits: feed-and-seed dealers, clientless rural lawyers, insurance salesmen, chiropractors, "consultants," auto mechanics and lay preachers. And then, of course, there is the governor, Sonny Perdue, a veterinarian.

In 1960, you still had to be twenty-one to vote for president, so there it was, a first for me. And there was that sun-shiny John F. Kennedy, running for president against the perspiring "devil". My boy-friend (soon to be my husband but I didn't know it yet) and I invited the same group over to watch the returns that had been with us to watch the infamous tv debate.

We thought we were such hot shots.  People over for dinner.  Sitting on the floor.  Loads of beer and something we all seemed to like then– sangria. And chili.

Anchorage, Alaska has some of the best restaurants in the world. Especially if you like salmon.  Years ago, I spent a summer in Anchorage-it was the Exxon Valdez trial, and it went on for months.  I remember some things about the trial.  I remember everything about the dinners, which isn't particularly remarkable, as I had the exact same thing-in different restaurants-every night (except for this one place where I always ordered venison).

I live in Groton Long Point, an insular, happily stuck-in-the-50s beach community, predominantly Republican. There’s a sweet little town next door called Noank, another of our New England miracles, formerly a small fishing village, at the mouth of the Mystic River.  Carson's Store is in the heart of Noank and it’s where the regulars and summer visitors gather for breakfast or lunch, or the occasional fund-raising soup or fish 'n chips dinner. Friday nights in the summer, they have musical events outside the store and everyone brings chairs and tables and picnics which they set up  on both sides of the street. Traffic and stray cats are never regulated in Noank, so the cars just pick their way carefully through the musical events and the audience.  

Every year, my elementary school had the 6th Grade Play, in which the ENTIRE 6th grade puts on a musical. In 1991, the year when I was in Mrs. Hoffmann's 6th grade class, the play was Oklahoma. The problem was, there were 60 kids in the 6th grade and about 12 parts in the whole play. Thus, the venerable martyr/music teacher Mrs. Ames wrote in 48 other parts and added songs from eight million other musicals.

When I was travelling around in my twenties, photographing what I saw, sometimes for a reason and sometimes only with an excuse, mostly in the American South, Noel E. Parmentel used to tell me who to stay with. Noel was from Algiers, Louisiana, though he liked to say he was from New Orleans, and he knew everyone from Joan Didion (she or John dedicated a book to him but that was before they had a fight and Noel vowed to piss on her grave,the first time I ever heard that phrase) to the widow of Big Hodding Carter, who'd been brave in Mississippi in ways and times you might not be able to imagine, from Norman Mailer to Gwen & Kent Gardner.

When I was a kid growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, my favorite food in the whole wide world were sugar cookies from Savage's Bakery in Homewood. Made fresh daily, from before I could even walk, I used to go in there with my mother to buy bread and other baked goods, knowing that every trip to Savage's always ended with a big fat old-fashioned buttery cookie, cooked to the perfect yellow consistency and coated with the best flakes of sugary sweetness that would melt in your mouth. 

Don't get Chinese food when you're in Montana. You'd think I'd be able to know this without having to go to Montana and get Chinese food but apparently I'm not that bright. My band was on tour in Montana in 2002 and for some reason, we, three native New Yorkers who all know better decided to go to the one Chinese restaurant in Missoula, MT. I've had some bad Chinese food in my life, but this one really took the cake.

The day after Governor Clinton announced his candidacy for President outside The Old State House in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mickey Kantor, a friend of my then-boyfriend, called and asked if I would advance the Governor at 7:00 the next morning.  The Clintons, Bruce Lindsay, and a friend of theirs from Colorado, who pretty much made up the entire campaign, were coming to Los Angeles where Governor Clinton was to be a guest on Michael Jackson’s radio show. All I knew about him was that he could not stop talking when he delivered the keynote address at the Democratic convention in 1988 and I wasn’t at all sure that he would be my candidate.  I said no.  No.  No.  No.  Absolutely not. 

Tolna, North Dakota ­ a town of 240 people.  Spending time there during the centennial of the town reminded me of the essential nature of the state, which permeates the life, the politics, and the cuisine. 

The entire weekend consisted of food that started in the freezer and beer ­ seriously, nothing says North Dakota like a cooler full of Busch Lite in the back of the pickup in the parking lot of the demolition derby – except maybe if the beer is coupled with a Red Baron pizza.

Idaho's first potato grower was not a farmer at all, but a Presbyterian missionary, Henry Harmon Spalding. Had he been seeking a life in Idaho as a farmer, the chances are good that he would have found land more suitable to agriculture rather than the locale at Lapwai where he established his mission in 1836 to bring Christianity to the Nez Perce Indians. His plan was to demonstrate to the Nez Perce that they could provide food for themselves through agriculture rather than hunting and gathering.

I wish I could say my priorities are straight at this point in my life. I thought they were when I recently cashed out of  Hollywood and moved to a smaller, simpler existence in Fort Collins, Colorado so my daughter could be closer to our family.

Among the multitude of things I had on my endless “to do” list once we arrived, was to register as a democrat so my vote would count in what was clearly looking like a history-making primary.  But, if I am truly honest, what consumed me way more than politics or extended family time was where to get my roots done to my exacting standard.  After all, I had exactly one month before I would look scary, but several months to register, and the rest of our lives to spend family time.  

From the Los Angeles Times 

The candidate was at a loss for words Tuesday, which in this campaign is a rare occurrence.

Standing in a packed gym in wind-swept Midwest oil country, Barack Obama was trying to explain how he and the 72-year-old white woman in the audience, with her hair band and spangly blue cardigan, happen to be related.

Obama had traveled here to his grandfather's birthplace to make a point about humble beginnings and possibility, about unity and shared purpose, and he was using his family's roots in deeply Republican Kansas as an illustration. At least, he was trying to.

When I strolled recently in Harvard Yard with my daughter Paris, she reminded me that these ivy- covered brick buildings were not only where she had bunked as a freshman, but also where the American Revolutionary War troops had slept before there were polls or primaries, or even elections, or even American Presidents.  I feel the political history when I’m in Cambridge.  

In 1968, our neighborhood Good Humor Man ran for President of the United States.

It was a huge story in my home town of Highland Park, Illinois. And since we’ve arrived at the fortieth anniversary of this man’s candidacy, it seemed like a good time to tell it again.

His name was Don DuMont, a 64-year-old Republican who described himself as an “old-fashioned, up-to-date, Good Humored square with rounded corners.”

Stepping out of his white ice cream truck, dressed in his white uniform and white hat with his white hair, he appeared before us like an angel – a big, husky, right wing angel. But with no wings. At least none that could carry him all the way to the White House.

I’m sitting in Barack Obama’s campaign office in Dover, New Hampshire.  It is 3:30 in the afternoon on Monday, January 7; the day before New Hampshire’s primary.  Tomorrow, my typically humble state has the duty to be the first in the nation to choose by ballot its Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. 

The campaign office is buzzing.  I, along with most of the other volunteers, have just returned from our first shift of canvassing around our small town.  I’ve been on foot (or tush, as I’ve fallen countless times on icy sidewalks) for four hours trying to convince local voters to vote for Senator Obama tomorrow.  I’m exhausted and I’m hungry; however, my day is immediately brightened.

With a state fair that has long been dubbed “The Great Minnesota Get-Together,” it should be no surprise that even on the most frigid days of winter, Minnesotans love to get together. And they love to gather with food.

These days, you may find friends discussing politics over a plate of Minnesota hotdish or Scandinavian meatballs and mashed potatoes as they debate over their presidential preferences in a small diner in downtown Bemidji called Minnesota Nice.

In a Minneapolis suburb, there’s a good chance you’ll find a table of women enjoying gigantic caramel rolls and cups of hot coffee at Good Day Café. Their conversation may include a debate on whether or not Al Franken really is serious about fighting for Minnesota families.

Election anxiety? Key Lime Martinis and Go With the Flow Curry should alleviate the stress.

(So, the Palm Beach Police just discovered a dead body in the closet of one of our Palm Beach landmark mansions!  He was the 1936 Hide and Seek Champion… Very funny, very funny)

Everyone in Palm Beach likes to talk about the candidates, but no one wants to talk about voting, for hanging chads and other ridiculous screw-ups are still an open wound to the once proud community. What to do…

Today a goal of my adult lifetime was realized. In 1970 I was involved in the Student Strikes at Syracuse University following the killing of students at Kent State University while they were protesting the Vietnam War. I was an anti-war activist and reported on the strikes for the local public radio station.

But I was not yet an active Feminist. That came later when, as the first woman instructor in the Radio/TV division of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, I was denied a vote in Department meetings. But I was expected to make the coffee and do a donut run for the men who would attend the meetings. I purposely made the coffee badly and was taken off the task. I then started reporting on the activities and protests of the Kansas City Women’s Liberation Union. I produced a weekly radio program on the NPR station called “New World Coming” from 1972 to 1974. I attended protests for equal rights. I know I have a dusty file in the Kansas City office of the FBI because of my activism.