Sarah Palin is an heir to the women's movement. She has not been constrained by gender. At no point in her life has she thought, 'I can't do that because I'm a woman.'

Downplaying their faults is pretty much the point of campaigns. But we do count on them living with the constant terror of public rejection.

This is America, and we don't restrict our battles over people's sex lives to 11 months a year

We always need to remember that behind almost every great moment in history, there are heroic people doing really boring and frustrating things for a prolonged period of time.

DePaulo says that 'singlism' -- a term she coined and for which we are prepared to forgive her -- is not just aimed at unmarried women.

I used to like John McCain, too, but I must admit that was because he was bucking his party to do things I agreed with. I would not have had that reaction if, say, Bernie Sanders decided to rebel out of principle and support privatizing Social Security.

The high point was that the people are really nice - despite the crazy politics - and I loved being there. The hardest part was knowing some of the things I was probably going to write about Texas would make those nice people very unhappy.