Dozens of you wrote in about your experiences.

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Friday, July 5, 2019

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President George H.W. Bush at a campaign stop in Stevens Point, Wis., in 1992. Gregory Humphrey, a listener, was there. Diana Walker, via The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images

Michael Barbaro

So, about those political rallies. Two weeks ago, we asked for your memories of attending them. Why did you go? What was the experience like? What moments stayed with you?

Dozens of you wrote in. You recalled the smallest details — the four songs that seemed to play from the loudspeakers on an endless loop, the weight of a parent's hand, the pattern of clothing worn by a candidate's spouse. You recounted the camaraderie of like-minded strangers in a crowd, suddenly drawn together in common cause. And you remembered the exhilaration of witnessing a small slice of history.

In 1992, listener Gregory Humphrey attended a rally in Stevens Point, Wis., for George H.W. Bush, who had been campaigning with a copy of David McCullough's biography of Harry Truman in hand. Bush arrived by train, just as Truman had when he was campaigning in the state. "This was a moment that made time seem to move backwards as the loud engine and sharp whistle brought a president to that little depot," Humphrey wrote us.

That same year, Catherine Sanderson attended a rally for Bush's opponent, Bill Clinton, in Georgia. She remembers a perhaps less grand moment: A speaker tried thanking the popular band playing on stage, but butchered its name, "saying R.E.M. as one word, instead of (correctly) saying each letter, R-E-M."

You marveled at the candidates' endurance and discipline, wondering how they could deliver so many speeches to so many people. For a college political science class, Daniel Groce visited rallies for John McCain and Mike Huckabee. "I find it impressive that not only are they able to stay on message," he wrote, "but also they can still make you feel like you're hearing something for the first time that they've said a thousand times."

But Patrick Stanton found himself acutely aware that the political rally he attended, for Barack Obama in 2008, was a performance — and he was unsure who, exactly, was the intended audience. "Political rallies aren't for the people in the audience or really for the average person, but for the people watching it on TV," he wrote. "They are for sound bites and news clips."

A few of you recalled the kindness of strangers and the warmth of political kinship. Steve Stern was at a rally for Bernie Sanders in 2015, struggling to see over a tall man in front of him. "When he saw this, he very politely offered to change places with me so that I could take pictures," he wrote. "And while Bernie's message resonated with me back then, my lasting impression was that of the courtesy of the throngs of people there."

Isa Chancey had a different reaction after attending rallies for Sanders, Clinton and the Democratic Party in California. They had all been political echo chambers. She admired the speakers, but one after another, they affirmed the same points of view, unchallenged. "That is why I end up feeling uncomfortable at events and rallies like that," she wrote.

But on this, there was universal agreement: Nobody regretted attending a political rally, and everybody remembered it vividly.

Talk to Michael on Twitter: @mikiebarb.

Meet Theo Balcomb

Theo is just as vibrant in real life. Luis Mazón

You've probably heard Theo Balcomb's name in the credits. She's the executive producer of "The Daily" and one of the team's founding members. In an interview about how one "crazy idea" became our show, she talks about when she knew she wanted to be a journalist, the most memorable episode she's worked on, and the craft that goes into each episode: "I think about it like a hand-stitched quilt. Everybody on our team comes together, every single day, to embroider an episode. I grew up with my mom dragging out her sewing machine to make our Halloween costumes, with my dad decorating our birthday cakes that he would bake from scratch. I love that 'The Daily' has the same homemade quality." Read the full interview here.

What we're listening to

Who: Jessica Cheung, a producer for "The Daily"

What: "Armchair Expert" with Dax Shepard

Where to start: "Kristen Bell"

Having grown up in a home where we never discussed feelings, I inherited from my parents a stubbornness against doing so. This week, I turned 26, officially crossing into a new territory called my late 20s, where I now find myself among peers who pay strangers to talk about their feelings in therapy. I, for the better part of my life, have chosen to deal with my feelings by shoving them into the bowels of my soul, letting them mature into bigger, more permanent problems. (And yes, it's worked really well for me so far!)

The "Armchair Expert" podcast, with guests like Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ira Glass, Kumail Nanjiani and Ashton Kutcher, made me reconsider. In the podcast, the host, Dax Shepard, an actor who has been sober for a decade, interviews people in Hollywood about life, love, hopes and fears, a bit like in a therapy session. Whatever baggage they bring into the conversation, Dax stirs it open, airing their dirty laundry from the top of the Apple Podcasts chart.

These interviews have me thinking that if even the most successful, funny, beautiful and charming of us can admit to the lasting effects of bullying, mommy issues, estranged fathers, getting fired and getting dumped, maybe being vulnerable about this stuff won't ruin a person. Maybe instead of bottling up these emotions, articulating them not only makes us feel better, but can also make these experiences mean something. Listening to Dax's conversations has become a kind of therapy for me — I find passages that lead me to little breakthroughs. I'm still averse to talking about feelings, but this podcast has gotten me to, at least, start.

On 'The Daily' this week

"She actually saw kids who had shirts that were stained with mucus, and with vomit, and teenage mothers who had breast milk crusted onto their shirts." Caitlin Dickerson takes us inside a detention facility for migrant children in Clint, Tex.
"If you're Iranian, you look at this, and you say, 'We tried the experiment of giving up most of our program, and the Americans just turned around and reimposed sanctions anyway.'" David Sanger on what Iran is learning from North Korea when it comes to building a nuclear arsenal.
"There's this split screen of Joe Biden," Astead Herndon tells us. There's the Biden who knows black church leaders by name, and there's the Biden who uses the "stories of Wilmington to pass more tough-on-crime measures that some in that community say they weren't asking for."
An Ohio town helped deliver the presidency to Donald Trump, betting he would fulfill his promise to save its auto industry. Sabrina Tavernise looks at the political fallout from the fact that he didn't.