kiely's cross i pursued the paper trail, unwound the breed of names through census and baptism each generationhristening the last until it was language on the tongue and the trail trailed to the mists of the unrecorded. now i was tracing a highway to ore gin the potatoes struck black with blight. metals and we was their faces swollen with fever. stench rising from the evicted burrowed. men like dogs scoured the fields. i saw in one cottage a royal of rats feasting on an infant. no one where i witnessed anything like it not in calcutta. the voiceless children silenced by hunger the bodies burned at night leaving i don't trace. descending the drum hills i turned off the main road following signs and i language lost before i was born. this was land observe the land was renamed and hushed. what was left for me, generations gone. a purfume of smoke freshened my nostrils. pastures reached to the head of the bay. thick roads where locals greeted with slowly raised hands or a nod of a cap to my car the postcard my eye framed in it's longing. moony's pub where i stopped for a pint and slipped my quest.

host: kathy kiely is the politics managing editor.he numbers to call -- a story in "to "the huffington post" recently -- how does that play out in terms of candidates figuring out their strategy and carrying their message? guest: it plays out because this is one of the controversial aspects of our election system. we use an electoral college system which makes certain states very important, states where the candidates know the battle will be closely fought. other states become flight over territory and are neglected as a result. -- fly-over territory. a lot of these states tend to be diverse states, s. industrial states have had a harder time getting paid attention to early in the campaign because they don't figure in the primary -- early primary contests. i think in the general election you have a lot of states where the voters will never see the candidates. that is a shame. host: let's look at one of the recent folks to get in on the run for president. representative thaddeus mccotter, a michigan republican. here's an image of him p

host: kathy kiely is the politics managing editor. the numbers to call -- a story in "to "the huffington post" recently -- how does that play out in terms of candidates figuring out their strategy and carrying their message? guest: it plays out because this is one of the controversial aspects of our electi system. we use an electoral college system which makes certain states very important, states where the candidates know the battle will be closely fought. other states become flight over territory and are neglected as a result. -- fly-over territory. a lot of these states tend to be diverse states, s. industrial states have had a harder time getting paid attention to early in the campaign because they don't figure in the primary -- early primary contests. i think in the general election you have a lot of states where the voters will never see the candidates. that is a shame. host: let's look at one of the recent folks to get in on the run for president. representative thaddeus mccotter, a michigan replican. here's an image of him pla