He is rightly proud to have arrived at the political summit, after a boyhood as a postman's son and an education at Ohio State University.

ECONOMIST: John Kasich, fading Jacobin

The mother of Sergeant Carlos Escobales, a Miami postman who was sent to Iraq in February and is now in Tikrit, had hoped he would be home in October, but had not made a fuss.

ECONOMIST: Part-time soldiers have to go to Iraq, too