High up in the nosebleed section of the Democratic National Convention, where the North Dakota delegation sat—the party had no great electoral expectations from that state—Phyllis Howard explained her Mandan-Hidatsa tribe’s political priorities. “I think Native Americans are forgotten dual citizens,” she said. “I think state people forget.”

Maybe I have been too harsh in judging Barack Obama’s economic performance. Instead of following George W. Bush’s lead in bailing out the bankers first, I wanted Obama to do more for beleaguered homeowners and less for the Wall Street swindlers who trafficked in toxic mortgages. But the president must have done something right, or the hucksters at Goldman Sachs wouldn’t hate him so.

Martha Raddatz specializes in foreign policy, so it's no surprise that the vice presidential debate tonight focused largely on hot spots abroad, even though that put Paul Ryan at a distinct disadvantage. Still, Raddatz did manage to work in a little time at the end of the debate to ask the perennial abortion question, sadly framing it as a matter of personal ethics instead of what it really is: a matter of legal rights regardless of your personal feelings or religious doctrine.

One September night in the western Pennsylvania borough of Monaca, a disillusioned resident told a labor canvasser that he’d once “backed all of the Democrats all the way through,” only to realize “both sides” were “really full of shit.” Then he said something I heard often during my week in the region: “If all these factories were still running here, we’d all still have jobs.”

This article was produced in collaboration with the nonprofit Food & Environment Reporting Network, an investigative reporting nonprofit focusing on food, agriculture and environmental health. 

In March 2010, Michelle Obama stood on a stage in Washington and leveled a challenge at the food industry’s biggest players.