She summed up the US election better than any other pundit when she said of Donald Trump's campaign, "It's exciting watching the footage of his rallies thinking, 'This will be in a documentary in about 20 years time with ominous music underneath it, and here's me watching it live.'".
In the same way we rooted for Clay a few years ago when he showed up as an actual actor in a Woody Allen movie, the audience at a Trump rally is thinking, How funny would it be if this guy were across the table from Angela Merkel?
She asked at the rally what many were thinking: "Are we ready for Hillary?" The crowd chanted Clinton's name, and she mouthed a thank-you.
"What really happened today was the standard ebb and flow between people thinking the rally is justified because we're not slipping into the dark ages, and fears that we don't have enough earnings growth to sustain the higher levels," said David Bianco, chief United States equity strategist at UBS.
I am 100 percent guilty of playing the eccentric fool at the pep rally led by Jared Bernstein by thinking that he might be using the language of scholarship, and that his words ought to be taken literally.
"I think that's the point," one protester observed, thinking it had been done for the rally to protest police shootings.
At rallies, she says, she's often thinking about things she has to do, or is on the look-out for trouble.
"I know I said I wanted to hear what the public is thinking," she said during her rally on Sunday, perhaps only half joking.
Even Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi cautions against thinking all Iranians won't rally if attacked.
Last week, he made "thinking" a theme of his rallies.
