Fourth avenues book row, it and ran from astor place. In its heyday, there were 48 bookstores. They all sold used books, and strand is the only one that has survived since then. The store was left to my dad and then passed on to me, and i just want to thank all you voracious readers for supporting this bookstore. Tonight or we are so excited to have with us caitlin moscatello, acclaimed journalist and founder of repro, reproductive rights in state and federal legislatures. Shes received a frontpage award and planned parenthood media Excellence Award and was named a United Nations press fellow for her work in the Conde Nast Traveler and more. Tonight shes here as the author of see jane win, which is the story of women changing american politics. She tells the story of four candidates to capture the moment when sadness and rage at the election of trump are catalyzing into a wave of resistance and activism. Joining caitlin to discuss the book is amanda litman. She has her own book. Its dont just march, row for something. Its a top guide to fixing the system yourself. [laughter] okay. Shes also the cofounder and executive director of a pac called run for something. Supporting the pac, she supports diverse, young progressives who are running for office. Just let me observe the hard work of our two guests has really paid off. Last november the Washington Post had the headline, Record Number of women heading to congress. Since 2007 they, along with enormously talented colleagues working the front lines, are have elected more than 220 women across the country. Theyre so persuasive that i think even tonight they might persuade one of you to run for office. [laughter] im thrilled to welcome these two brilliant women that are here to discuss the tidal wave of change thats breaking into these elections and also to have our friends at cspan here to film their conversation for an episode of booktv. Please join me in welcoming caitlin and amanda to the strand. [applause] thank you so much for having us yes, thank you. Thank you, caitlin, for having me. So for those who havent realize it yet, which probably is most of you since it just came out today [laughter] tell us what your book is about. Well, i started this book in february 2017, and at the time, this politically bleak time for many women in this country. And there were sort of these rumblings. There were early reports that groups like merge america and emilys list were being inundated with women who were newly interested in running for office. So i called some of these organizations and started talking to some of these women, and i thought this is really we knew after the election women had donated in Record Numbers to planned parenthood and the acl are u, women had mored men too there was this new energy. But i was really wondering are we going to act, right . So you can march all you want, but if you dont change policy, nothing happens. And the way to change policy is to get better people in office and more Diverse People in office. So i followed it. And i didnt know when i started this book, i sat down at [inaudible] across the city at these big tables, and i said i want to write a book about women running for office. I dont know if its an inspiring story or if its going to be a depressing one. I dont know who the characters are going to be because i dont know whos actually going to make it onto the ballot. I wont know for a year and a half who wants to do this. [laughter] and ended up working on the project together. But that was really sort of the catalyst for the book. I was following what i saw as the one bright light in this sort of dark and anxietyproducing time. And it turned into, over the course of my reporting, this huge story. I would love to say i knew it was going to be that. I didnt when i started, but i wanted to tell these womens stories. One of the things that i noticed from my personal experience and that you note so clearly in the book is so many women running through barriers to entry to running. In particular, the normal sexist [inaudible] [laughter] sorry. Also institutional and organizational barriers in that if you cant raise money, you cant win. Out becomes a selffulfilling prophesy. How did you observe that in the process, how did the candidates you were working with experience that . Yeah. So it really depended. So i wanted to shadow and interview women who were running for various levels of office in different parts of the country. And so one of the main characters is abigail stamberger, now a congresswoman in virginia, mother of three, former cia operative who flipped her red district blue last year. And, you know, for her it was different. Shes running for congress, she knows she has to raise about a million dollars. She did a lot of phone calls before she even decided to run to make sure she had that network. Now, someone like catalina cruz, now new york assemblywoman cruz, who did not have that powerful network, right . So she was really relying on small donations. Some of her donations were 10, 20. I think in the beginning her primary opponent who was the establishment person here in new york had exponentially fewer donors than she did, and she had to hustle. It was a grassroots effort in that it had volunteers on her campaign, and its difficult to rely on volunteers for something as major as fundraising. But it was interesting to see how these women fought to get these doe or nor networks. And donor networks. [inaudible] the founder of emerge america, she came here to the city and met with democratic donors, and we sat down when she was here doing that. Is and she could not get these people invested in downballot races. She was getting shut down at all of these different meetings that she was having. Because they just didnt see it. People were focused on governorships, and she was saying we have to start this pipeline, we have to get more women into office. This isnt a nice thing to do for charity, this is really important to democracy. Its really important for a lot of these policy issues that democrats are invested in, and donors need to share that. And she had a really difficult time. I think its really, really hard. Something exclusively focuses on state legislature and below, so things like school board, sheriff, dogcatcher to coroner which is a real position in 1300 counties across the country. People dont care. Voters dont care, donors dont care. And it becomes especially hard if youre a woman of Color Running for city council where not only do you not have a builtin network of fundraising because your peers dont have the money or necessarily the wealth built up to give you, and those are the first people you go to to ask for money, your friends and family, but youre running for a position that people dont think matters. And this is the point. Even when the positions, you know, the more prominent, one of the other women i interviewed in the book ran for governor in maryland last year. And heres this woman, she works she worked for Michelle Obama in the white house. She was politically connected. And she told me this anecdote that i could not believe it. We were sitting down here in new york, and she was also coming to meet with various donors and supporters. And she told me that she had been calling up big donors in Silicon Valley and that she would point out to them the importance of having more anymore office. More women in office. She would tell them the statistics, try to illustrate this point to them, give them the data, and she was actually shut down by people who were offended by the fact that she was giving them that data. The other thing she said that actually really did shock me was that she was calling very powerful, wealthy women. Some of them she described as fortune 500, you know, coos, c suite types, and she would ask them for money. Will you support me, will you support my campaign. And some of them said e to her, well, let me ask my husband. Right . And so to hear that, i found it really shocking but also really telling. Now, the good news is there is some research that says when women run, they are able to raise the same amount as men. So there is that, which is encouraging. But the other side of that is women often have to tussle so much more because they give small donations. Its not the donors. Its these organizations that are supposed to be helping these women run. I love emilys list, im a big supporter. I love the Democratic Party, and these institutions often say if this woman cant raise money, we cant get behind her. Right, right. It confirms the belief that if she cant raise money, it wasnt worth getting behind in the first place. Right. Or that theres a viability factor and, unfortunately, money is still one of the biggest indicators of viability, and that can be a huge challenge for getting new women, new candidates across the board, but also new women into the race. One of the other things that you point out of many of the women you cover is the identity shift. And this is something we found at research we did at run for something candidates is the biggest point of cognitive dissonance is going from i am a citizen to i am a candidate and then to i am an elected official. Its a big jump in terms of how you see yourself. Absolutely, yeah. I saw this, i found this with abby stamberger in a big way. Ive been interviews her for interviewing her for over two years. I started speaking with abigail before she even officially decided to run. She was one of the emerging candidates i that talked to, she was on the fence about it. Now, abigail had been a cia operative. There was a time where the only people who knew were her father and her husband. She eventually told her mother. And she realized i am going to have to tell she was a girl scout troop leaders. He was like, im going to have to tell the parents, yeah, i was a cia operative, no big deal. And also she had lived a very private life. So part of that role for her was that she had to be, she had to be secretive. She had to be buttenned up for buttoned up for many years professional hi. So that was her big hurdle. She was, when we spoke in the spring of 2017, she was really still thinking about what she was going to do, and she was really worried about the privacy factor. And we know that that is a big concern for women. Part of it separate from abigail as a whole is theres also, you know, women are more frequently attacked online. Those attacks can be violent. Theyre much more likely than men to be sexualized, and that can also be very scary and offputting for women running. As a young woman who works in politics, one of my favorite pieces of your book is every time you talk about one of these candidates dating life. [laughter] i, so when i did my book, i got to talk to a lot of young elected officials, and that was one of the questions i asked, how did this affect your personal life. The women, i dont have a personal life, i dont want date. The men i would talk to had a very different answer. What was the answer . I didnt talk to men. [laughter] talking to a young mayor of a pretty big city who told me when he first started his term, he was taking women to all these different events because he thought he had to bring a plus one to all of them, and then he started getting a reputation around town, and it was scandalous. When he started dating the woman who would become his wife, they went on a date and he was like i guess the woman whos going to become my wife is going to be okay with people yelling at us on our dates. [inaudible] maybe. [laughter] i noticed so much in your book how, you know, anna eskami, candidate in florida who is incredible, is going to be governor of florida one day and really says i dont have a love life. Yeah. So anna is incredible. When im interviewing her, shes 27 years old. Probably 28 now. Yeah. She is now the first iranianamerican immigrant in office in florida, and she ran a really amazing race in a purple district. She ran as a progressive and won pretty much by a landslide. Yeah. But, yeah, anna, i talked to her about this because her twin sister was dating and i was like, so, you know, what are you doing with that . And shes like i cant be on tinder, you know . Especially as a young woman and theres those sexist biases do exist. And so shes like people will take that, and theyll say things about me. Theyll slut shame me. She was like, i just have to put that aside. I also have to say shes not truly interested. Shes like, im busy. Shes, like, getting a ph. D. . Oh, my gosh, she has three jobs. Shes a very busy woman. But theres a really interesting part in the book, i dont want to give too much away, but she tells, actually, really funny stories about her prior relationship. But theres also a part of the book where there were rumors that she was sleeping with a republican lawmaker. Completely unfounded, it was a friend of hers, and she had to deal with that. Like, that was something that she had to deal with as a young woman running for office. And even now you read Stacey Abrams has been in all these profiles lately, and in every single one it talks about how she said i didnt have time for a love life. It was never a priority for me, and it makes me really sad. I just want women to be happy. I do think theyre happy though. I think its important that anna really sees herself, and i admire this about her, anna really sees herself outside of that. The youngest black woman in elected office in tennessee also a character in the book, and london also in her 20s and was struggling with some of the same things, and she was really open. She was like, you know, i do want a family someday, and that is important to me, and i just have to think about what that is right now. And she shared with me in the book she was in a relationship during her campaign, and so she also shared with me kind of some of the challenges that that can present. When we talk to people about running for office, the number one thing they say is your friends and family need to be onboard because either your relationships will suffer or your campaign will suffer. Yes. Theres no alternative. Theres no middle ground here. And in abigail stambergers case, she has three kids under the age of 10. Shes running for office, her husband works from home, she had inlaws nearby, but she did get asked about out. And male candidates dont get asked about it because people tend to think the wife is tending to the kids. So, again, another one of those biases that women sometimes face. You cover them mostly as candidates, but you got a little bit of time with them as elected officials. How do you think theyve changed as people or how do you think theyve changed as people now that theyre in office . I dont know if theyve changed as people, but i do think, i to abigail stambergers case is she was part of this wave of women who were running in 2018, but her district had not voted for a democrat since i think it was 1968. And they had never had a woman represent them in congress. So she is still in that district, and it can really go either way for 2020. And so i think for her there is being part of this wave of women and that being celebrated, but he also has to remember her constituents. She has to remember who her voters are and who her district is. And so i think thats something you can kind of even see in the press in the past month, shes very much being framed as this probably more moderate lawmaker. Was there anyone you spoke to or any candidate you talked to during your reporting that werent in the book that you found particularly interesting and you wish you could have included . One of the women i talked to, i had such a great conversation with her for those who dont know who she is . Yes. She ran in michigan and really a funny candidate. Actually, there was so much in this book, i mean, this is two years of reporting. So if i could so much did not make it into the book, which kind of breaks your heart, and then you go to the editor, and theyre like, no, it cant be 500 pages. That was one of the stories that kind of broke my heart not to be able to put that in because i think she was a really exciting candidate. Another Senate Candidate in arizona, grassroots, i spent time with her and shadowed her. I did end up taking a little bit of that visit, but it goes to show you three days of reporting, and i think its a paragraph in the book. Your final big interview in the book is with secretary hillary clinton. Yes. [laughter] god bless. [laughter] biggest takeaway from that . Biggest takeaway from the hillary interview. I mean, like a fun takeaway . [inaudible conversations] yeah, true. And shes been open about this is and shes spoken about this, but i think the fact that there was always kind of i dont want to say a law, she always kind of struggled with that, how can i be awe they wanteddic authentic, but i also have to be strong. Theyre supposed to walk this razor thin line between showing these authoritative traits that tend to be labeled as masculine traits. Studies also show that voters respond well to women who are nurturing and compassionate and open, right . So its like you have to be strong but authoritative but also, you know, sunshine. And i think that thats something that she has struggled with. Shes been open about that struggle, and people have called her cold and things like that. She was so fun to talk to she wasnt cold at all. [laughter] and the fact that she did the interview, theres Something Else i want to say about that interview is that i contacted other i did contact some female lawmakers to speak with me who were very high profile, and they didnt. And she did. And she didnt need to, and i really appreciated that. She was the only person who could give me the insight on running as a woman as a major party nominee. I pursued that interview for 12 months. A little hillary anecdote, if i may. The first shes been very generous with run forking . , and one of the run for something, and i had just had knee surgery, and every time since then, amanda, how are are you doing physical therapy . Are you walking okay . Yes. The smartest grandma youve ever wanted. Yes. Well, i ls, i gave birth to my first child during primary season when i was reporting this, and she knew that through her team, and she was, you know, asking me hows your son, things like that. Yeah, it was just kind of a nice i mean, shes still yes, she got into it. That was another thing that surprised me, a lot of it didnt make it into the book because it didnt quite fit into the narrative, but she was quite candid on some things i didnt expect her to be. The other thing, i guess maybe a paragraph or so, but how much it matters whos telling the stories of these women candidates. Particularly e relevant as some terrible men keep popping back up. [laughter] well, the majority of political reporters in this country and people who are covering politics are men, particularly white men. And we also know that theres, look at their social media accounts, and they magnify each other on twitter. So they retweet each other, and they share each others stories. Modern media work, one of the ways these stories take off is one person starts tweeting something, and the next thing you know theres, like, sick stories about it, right . And theyre all kind of in the same vein, and they all kind of have the same opinion. The example is right after the 2018 midterms when women made history by flipping the house and there were women nevadas now the first femalemajority state legislature in the country. And there are more women in state legislatures now than ever before. And not just women, diverse women. I cant stress that enough. Women of color, lgbtq women, women with young kids who are typically, you know, brushed aside when theyre running for office, women with different racial backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds. These are the women who won, and these are the women who energized people and got them to the polls. So it was really frustrating as someone who covered this for two years to see almost immediately after that happened when we knew that Kamala Harris was going to run for president , we knew gillibrand was going to be in the race. The immediate conversation among white male journalists some white male journalists, i should say not all. Was bay toe versus bernie versus biden. [inaudible] its really not [laughter] not only do you have to be a white man, but your first or last name has to start with a b. Thats the only way were going to talk about you as our president ial candidate. And it really just struck me because i thought in this moment where we just witnessed history, women are the ones who energized voters. Record turnout for these women, and that is the conversation. And i just thought i just hope were not screwed. But, caitlin, can a woman even win . [laughter] electability . [laughter] i think its really important to put some hard numbers here. The number of women in state legislatures in particular, which there are about 6,000ish across the country, increased from about 21 to 23 before and after 2018. But the number of women of color in state legislatures tripled. Yes. And the pool is growing. Yes. There was a great analysis of this, and if you look at the data from 2018 women and people of color who ran for office once they were on the ballot, they won just as much as white guys. I mean [laughter] directly reflects 55 of our winners were women, 50 were people of color. 50 people of color is actually more than endorsed. These parttime when they these people when they run for office, theyre good. You know why . Mediocre women dont run for office. Are you hopeful, are you optimistic is . You know, i am. I think that was kind of one of the threads that ended up going into this book. And, again, i did not know when i started this what the story was going to be. I knew what i wanted it to be, but there was no way. I couldnt dictate it, i didnt know. And it was just going to come out through the reporting. But i felt hopeful what made me want to do this book was each talking to these women, i was depressed after the election, i would get off the phone with these women, and i would be fired up. And that was one of the reasons i had to do this book. Because i just thought no matter what, this is worth pursuing. And these women themselves were hopeful. There was hope in the trying. There was hope in the fact that they were saying running for office is a hard slog. It can be a year of your life, it is making fundraising calls which is imagine picking up your phone right now and calling every single person, like exs, whoever, your friend from college you didnt go to their wedding six year ago, imagine calling a all of those people and asking them for money, right . Thats step one. Getting attacked online, not seeing your family, you might have to quit your job, by the way. Oh, and you might have to take out debt, credit card debt, because youve got to pay for some stuff, right . It is a huge risk. It is an incredible sacrifice. And the fact that these women looked at all that, the fact that they looked at hillary clinton, this qualified, capable woman who has done what weve all been told to do, right . She kept her head down, worked hard, and she kind of climbed that ladder. I thought she was going to win, most people [laughter] and i think that watching a guy that Many Americans knew as a Reality Television star who had been caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women, the fact that he is in the oval office over her, i just think that these women saw that and even though they know that happened, they saw that and they ran anyway. There is so much hope in that each if they lost. So i am hopeful because why wouldnt you be . And thats something thats a little bit frustrating about the conversations that are happening around 2020, because theres been a lot of reports frequently that, you know, most democrats are fearful. Theyre fearful of having a female candidate because hillary lost. Right . And that means we can never run a woman again. [laughter] and its just not based in reality. If you want to look at the data, if you want to look at who ran last year, if you want to look at what we know, we know right now with the information we have right now that the majority of voters in the Democratic Party are women, its that black women are the most reliable voting bloc in the party, and it is that people were excited about voting for women in 2018. And, of course, the best candidate should always win. The best candidate up wins. Often wins. If would hike to feel as hopeful as caitlin feels, run for something. It is exactly e that, it is what has gotten me out of bed every day for the last two and a half years that you get to work with and support people who are willing to make this sacrifice. Its not fun, its not glamorous, its not powerful, its not sexy. But it does make a difference and to be a part of their journey is sod good. With that, i want to open it up for questions. I think we have microphones, so if you want to just raise your hand, i will run the mic to you when you have a question. Hi, caitlin. Hi. Im wondering how did you pick the candidates that you were going to follow for the book . Great question. That is a great question. How did or i pick the candidates who i was going to follow, well, i knew that i wanted well, i knew a few things. Before i started this, i talked to numerous women, many of whom were very interesting who who didnt make it into the book. Some ended up dropping out, some ended up deciding not to run. The thing that i knew was that i wanted to i did not want to tell the story of white women running for office. I wanted to make sure i was getting women in different parts of the country, not just in liberal enclaves. Who was running in this what used to be republican enclave. I thought her base was emblematic and he was a member of the Freedom Caucus and so that to me that spoke to me about narrative. She was going out he was by herself at 27yearold woman. She was frank about those. A podium in her living room. I wanted to look at an activist who was transferring that work into elected office. I thought that would be really informative so people who are also add advocates and catalina, who was here in new york but i loved that she was her back story was incredible, it would make you cry. She was in the same way as aoc and everything else. Was intentional to almost focus on democrats or a reality o necessity . If republican women had a reaction if women in the Republican Party had said, whoa, this is have gone off the rails, there are proabortion republican women, more moderate republican women, they are just not heard. Im going to the left, but on camera to the right. If the republican women had rose up against that, no, we need to come to the center, we need to fix it, i would have been interested in that but that didnt happen. That was not the story, this wasnt the story, this is the story of women who after the 2016 election were throwing hats in the ring, it felt like the women were sacrificing the lives and putting it all on the line and it was a huge question mark and they were doing it, that was progressive women, that was the story i followed, and i dont apologize for that. Any republican young people running for office. Other questions . Worldwide theres been so many Prime Minister and president ial women, why sit taking america so long . [laughter] i dont think theres any number of reasons which includes American Culture thats more encouraged and prevalent and pop culture, i also think and this is the structural one, women tended to wait until they until kids were gone to run for office, you didnt have women who started at city councilors, did all the things that men do to climb to the top because nancy pelosi, for example, didnt run for office until her kids were out of the house, she didnt get to office until mid50s, early 60s, thats a totally reasonable decision but that doesnt mean we dont have a pool of women at the time of their career [laughter] i just dont understand why how many women voted for trump and did not support hillary, i understand the idiotic men who voted for trump and i do not understand why so many women did not vote for hillary, what can you offer . I can offer you an opinion. I did not speak to those women who voteed for trump, mostly white women who voted for trump. I think women can be can also be something i have heard from women who have supported women, you know, theyve kind of have a disdain for hillary and you have to wonder what thats about. Is it is that an internalized sexism, thats been the way they see themselves and the way they see other women, i do think its possible, theres room for different points of view, there are women who vote on singleissue voter, they would not support candidate who supports abortion. Theres some of that as well. I think a lot really has to do with internalizing a lot of the has has masagony and she was a reflection of her very clear values during her times, first lady, and afterwards and that is she was yeah. Hello, how are you . Since you did spend so much time with these women, how were you able to stay objective in your writing . I mean, yes, they were great, i think theres a few things in the book, catalina told me something that i wrote in there, oh, god, but its true, everything in the book is is true. Everything in the book was told to me, i was there for a lot of it and so i guess it depends on what the definition of objective is there i reported on what i saw but i will say having followed the women i think they are extraordinary women. Last one. Hi. How are you doing . You followed a cohort of women and some decided not to reason, is there a reason why they did to run and anything you can do in the community. There were two women who i started talking to in the beginning who decided not to run, it wasnt that there werent dozens of women, yeah, was understandable scenario and she we spoke for about 7 or 8 months and then she stopped returning my calls which is completely fine, its terrifying, a reporter calling you all of the time, so i dont want to her name, i dont say it in the book, but she was energized. She came out of that and started to think about her own race, she tried fundraising, she was a mom of 2. She was also going to school and for her she got a job offer, the job offer and so she wouldnt they wouldnt have allowed her to continue campaigning, she also did not get a lot of support in her community, in her experience about women running, that doesnt happen in her town n her in her district, i think she felt alone, a point of frustration for her and also was a mom of two kids who had bills to pay and she kind of thought, i think i have to do this now and i think im going to do Something Else later. Later on spoke i hope that she does. Another women who was it was more of an internal party thing. She had decided it might not be a good year for her and she decided to wait as well. Are there how many candidates are you particularly excited about . Running for senate . Kentucky against mitch mcconnell. She raised 2 million in her first 24, 48 hours, thats a race to watch. Thats a race to potentially engage in. Yes. , and jones is running again in texas and that was a narrow race in 2018 so im really happy to see her running again. I interviewed her and so obviously big one. Virginia state legislature. Two seats in Virginia State house and two in senate to have control, thats a huge deal, after 2020 we do the census, we draw boundaries for congressional district, if virginia, if democrats control the state legislature in the state of virginia, for example, they can assure its not gerrymandering. Once it goes red its hard to undo it. Pick a women, any women, to give you a list amanda running against horrific women amanda chase. My kind of fight. Amanda was young candidate and amanda chase, bigoted, hateful, victimblaming. [laughter] theres just dozens of amazing so take a look at 2019 races. 86,000 seats up for grabs, more than 150 candidates on the ballot. Lay it is ground work for 2020 and the work we do now will help the democratic president s nominee for president but anyone else. Thats a longer answer. [inaudible] how do you thats a great question. Its an interesting things that most organizations do. We dont for a couple of reasons, state campaign law, the amount of money and legal issues, would end up costing more than we give candidates number 1, number 2, when you donate to a candidate as an organization, we do a lot of things behind the scenes to help candidates, changes relationship. They cant come up with a stupid question and not giving them money we are more of a partner, i wish we could give them money, ask me in 10 years but for now thats the best we can do. Time for one more question if anyone has some. I guess i want to say that this month is another reason to celebrate the 19th amendment of 99 years ago, 100 years next year and thank you so much. Thanks for having me. [cheers and applause] book tv continues now on cspan2, television for serious readers. Good morning, everyone please take your seats
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