Not an easy state to maintain, especially when you're dining with people who keep talking about their children.
And there are no easy state-imposed carve-ups that would truly underpin a free, independent press.
"It's not an easy state for a Democrat to carry any longer," said Bruce Oppenheimer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
The problem with New York's slide forward, though, as Michael Cooper reported in The Times, is that it will still be an easy state for campaigns to skip.
Mrs Clinton will not be able to attribute a good performance on Mr Obama's part to gate-crashing by independents or even Republicans.Pennsylvania has long been presumed an easy state for Mrs Clinton to win.
But coming up with those savings will not be easy, state budget analysts say, particularly because many spending increases, like school aid, involve factors that have nothing to do with the rate of inflation, like court orders.
Start in the easy states -- the ones Democrats still control, like California.
My personality now rooted in that infinite source of timeless, formless being, I tend to experience an easy state of detachment a lot of the time.
And judgment is a very easy state-of-mind to slip into when confronted by a misbehaving child -- you don't only judge that child but judge yourself for judging him or her.
"She could have done New Hampshire or Maine ― small, easy states ― and then it wouldn't have been about Clinton, Kevin Zeesee, a senior adviser to Stein's campaign, told The Huffington Post last week.
