We’d been watching the debates, and trying to decide, after each, who won. Then the kids started pulling out the measuring cups and the teaspoons and the canisters of flour and sugar. They’d all bake something, and the grownups were supposed to taste each, and vote. The balloting was fraught. How do you vote against a sugar cookie? But it got me wondering about what elections look like to first-timers. Did politics look to them like a confection, Ron Paul a lemon square, Rick Perry marzipan?

Jill Lepore on how kids vote: http://nyr.kr/U9hzXV