September 23, 2019 • 59 mins
Women are a rare sight in the upper echelons of political campaign management and strategy. In this classic episode, we look at why that is.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff.
I never told your production of I Hiart Radio's House
Stuff works. For today's classic, we wanted to spotlight another
podcast that we think you might enjoy, called Modern Rules,
(00:27):
and that's Rules as an r U h L E.
S As in Stephanie Rules, UM, who has done a
lot of work outside of MSNBC, but you've probably seen
her on MSNBC. UM. She talks about all kinds of
things that we we talk about on this show, like feminism,
big one, masculinity, privilege, political correctness, the me too movement, UM,
(00:53):
social media, and faith and moral leadership. So if you're
interested in checking that out, please do UM. And for
this our classic episode, something that kind of ties into
that uh and is also pretty important right now. It's
very timely, is awhere are the women in political campaigns?
(01:14):
And uh, I feel like we're we're working on something
around this as well about women in politics in general
and what that looks like today. And so keep your
ear out for that one. Yeah, keep your your handcuffed
to your ear. And when you hear the notification like
a and then it's not that one, but it will
(01:35):
be eventually I'm sorry. I'm building a whole story in
my head. Um, But in the meantime, we hope you
enjoy this classic episode. Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told
You from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome
(01:57):
to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline And this
week could be considered a House of Cards week on
Stuff Mom Never Told You. Today we're talking about campaign strategists. Yeah,
because typically when you hear from a campaign strategist or
(02:17):
about one, it's usually a dude. Yeah, and so why
is that? Why is that? Um? And speaking of House
of Cards, before we get into women in political campaigning
and strategy, can we just take a moment to talk
about uh, Corey Lewandowski, who to me is Doug Stamper
(02:40):
on House of Cards. I R L will tell the
people who he is, Okay, So besides being a real
life Doug, he is a real life Doug. People who
have not seen House of Cards are just so confused
right now. Um. So, Uh, Corey Lewandowski is Donald Trump's
campaign manager and he's been extremely visible throughout the whole campaign. Um.
(03:03):
I would say that he's been the most visible campaign
manager partially because he was charged with simple battery of
former Bright Bart reporter Michelle Fields. Um. The charges have
since been dropped. But he is what you would expect
Donald Trump's campaign manager to be. I mean, he's opinionated,
(03:27):
he's pretty, let's say, rough and tumble. I like, how
diplomatic you're being. Well, this is all about campaign strategy
and spin. So Carolina trying to like really just get
into the spirit of it. Yeah, but didn't he like
he pushed her, right, Yeah. I watched the security footage
you can see it online, and he grabs her and
(03:49):
pulls her away. I mean it's kind of hard to
see what exactly went down, but um, yeah it was.
I mean just just the very idea of that happening
seemed just I'm a stranger than fiction. Although we can't
like this political season, we should just expect stuff like
(04:11):
that to be happening, you know. I Mean it's almost
like on like low on the list of bizarro things
that have happened so far. I know, just the the
day before we came into the studio to record this podcast,
Baynard referred to Ted Cruise as Lucifer in the flesh,
like things are just so weird politically like things are
(04:33):
so weird, and instead of focusing on the people out
front like Ted Cruz, Carlie Furina, Donald Trump, et cetera,
we wanted to pull back the curtain and look at
the political machinery because obviously, with all the money but
now goes into political campaigning, there's so much background work
(04:55):
to hone messages and optics and events, and you have
when you look at the gender breakdown of who does
what behind the scenes of political campaigns, you have um
a little pocket where women are are um welcomed, and
then the rest of it. It's pretty tough for a lady.
(05:20):
It can be pretty tough for a lady to branch
out in in the strategy realm. But first I wanted
to take a look at people behind the scenes in general,
so campaigns staffers, because I'm sure a lot of you
saw that big Jezebel piece that was looking at how
men and women in campaign staffs are paid and how
(05:43):
many are employed, and overall the numbers are pretty pretty bad.
Uh So, this again is coming from Jezebel, and the
the campaign with the highest paid discrepancy between men and
women was Ted Cruz. Uh. Male employees make an average
of twenty more than female employ ways in that campaign.
The now defunct Rubio campaign actually paid women the best.
(06:05):
They made on average just more than five thousand dollars
more than male staffers. And of ten of the ten
highest paid staffers on the sadly defunct Rubio campaign, which
a lot of people BT dubs in the primaries are
still voting for Rubio over Casic. For instance, UM six
for female. Six out of ten on the Rubio highest
(06:26):
paid staffer list were female. Not so for Bernie. He
is literally the only candidate who has no women in
his top ten highest paid employees. But he has paid
the women in his campaign equitably. In fact, on average
they're making a little under one thousand dollars more than
the men. And then if we look at Hillary Clinton,
(06:50):
men and women were making essentially the same amount, and
of her ten highest paid staffers, uh, sixer dudes for
our ladies, um, one of them being Whoma Aberdeen, who's
one of the biggest names really in political campaigning period.
She's Hillary's chief of staff and her campaign's vice chairwoman. Um.
(07:13):
And she also was on Call your girlfriend not that
long ago, which was uh interesting to hear. I mean,
like I'd never She's been featured in a number of magazines,
um in profiles and obviously his gotten a lot of
attention because her husband is Anthony Weener. Um. But it
was it was nice to hear whom I have just
(07:35):
kind of off the cuff conversation as off the cuff
as a chief of staff can be. Yeah. And I
love knowing that she started working for Hillary as an
intern at the White House in so she's been with
her a long time. Um. And if you look at Trump,
out of his ten highest paid staff members, seven or
men and three or women. Uh. And women on average
(07:57):
make three thousand dollars less than men their male counter.
It's for the Trump campaign and John Kasik is actually
the only candidate who has a female campaign manager. Her
name's Beth Hanson. And actually Mike Huckabee two did too,
he hired his daughter, but you know he's long gone
as well, I mean from the campaign right, not from
from Earth correct? Okay, um uh yeah. I find it
(08:21):
so ironic that k Sick has the lone woman campaign manager,
Beth Hanson, because his policies regarding women, as he's been um,
Ohio governor, have not been so Lady friendly again, you're
being so diplomatic. Um. So he oversaw massive shutdowns of
(08:44):
abortion providers in the state. He passed two thousand thirteen
budget to defund Planned Parenthood while mandating ultrasounds. Um. And
in an interview with Beth Hansen in lm agazine, the
interviewer asked, like, what she thought about when k Sick
(09:06):
essentially shut down um a young woman's question in one
of his events by saying, oh, look, I don't I
don't have any tickets to the Taylor Swift concert. And
and L Magazine was understandably like, okay, Like, how do
you answer to that? How can you say that your
(09:27):
candidate is still like a woman friendly person? And she
was like, well, you know, he has young daughters, he
has teenage daughters, and he's just you know, I think
it was just like he was trying to be funny,
and I mean, it was just like spin spin spin spin. Um.
But apparently she's been she's been with him for quite
a while as well. Um. But if we look at
the gender breakdown in terms of UH numbers, just like
(09:50):
of staffers, every campaign minus Hillary Clinton's has employed significantly
more men than women, which does reflect just the roader
trend in politics. But for sure I was heartened to
see that Hillary Clinton, the one woman running for president,
did hire or has hired more women on her staff
(10:10):
than men. Yeah, and we will and it's not just Hillary.
We will talk about that aspect of women in politics
here again in a little bit. But you know, the
whole skewing male thing obviously has been going on for
for a minute. The political consulting field itself rose to
prominence in the nineteen seventies and eighties. This is when
(10:31):
you start to see the professionalization of people working on campaigns,
and of course consulting that sort of encompasses a broad
range of positions, everything from campaign managers to people who
were just consulting on like media appearances and things like that.
So it's kind of a broad range of positions. Um,
(10:51):
it was in that we see the first ever female
campaign manager, Susan Estric. She was hired to run Democrat
Michael Dukakis's bid for president back then in the eighties.
But also, didn't she get it. She was kind of
the runner up. Oh yeah, she was not the first choice. Yeah,
the dude he wanted to hire was I don't know,
(11:12):
other otherwise engaged washing his hair. Um. In two thousand
four Mary Beth k Hill, John Kerry's campaign manager, was
the only woman in that role UH for that presidential race.
And in eleven, according to often quoted Rhetger's political science
(11:32):
professor Kelly ditmar Uh, she was looking at political consultants,
which again that encompasses strategists, polsters, ad makers, managers, media advisors, UH,
people who were working in top firms on senatorial and
gubernatorial races those years eleven, and she found that about
seventy of consultants with strategic influence were men, but a
(11:57):
higher number of women were working on Democrat at campaigns
than on Republican ones. And that's like you see that
every year, almost in every type of race, at every
level of government, that more women are working for the Democrats,
more women are in the higher levels of those consulting
firms who work with Democrats. Yeah. So in two thousand
(12:19):
and fourteen, for instance, among key Senate races, six percent
of GOP campaigns had female managers versus of Democratic campaigns.
And that was something that met Romney's former deputy campaign
manager manager called disturbing in terms of the lack of
senior level women. Yeah, I mean so basically, when you
(12:42):
are reading articles about women in consulting in campaign strategy,
you just hear a couple of names over and over again,
some of like the o g women consultants and strategists,
and Republicans for instance, had poster Linda duvol Operative, Maria Cino,
and of course consultant Mary Madaline who she's almost more
(13:07):
famous for being married to James Carvel. They of the
opposite political ends of the spectrum. And for the Democrats
back in the day, you had media group gurus like
Mandy Grenwald and Don Legwin's and posters Salinda Lake and
Diane Feldman. Not to mention, superstar strategist and one of
my favorite Twitter presence is Donna brazil Yeah. I was
(13:30):
telling Caroline before we came in the studio to record
that Donna Brazila is one of the only things that
I really enjoy about watching CNN during elections, and she
is a political force to be reckoned with. Not to mention,
she's made history. Um so, she worked on every presidential
(13:52):
campaign from nineteen seventy six to two thousand and when
she ran Al Gore's two thousand campaign, Pane she became
the first African American man or woman to manage a
presidential campaign. Um, and I love this fact about her.
She first got involved in politics when she was nine
(14:13):
years old, working to elect a city council member who
promised to build a playground in her neighborhood, which immediately
made me wonder, like, was that Leslie Nope from Parks
and Wreck, because it would how perfect would that be? Um?
I know that's impossible because Leslie Nope is not real technically, Um,
(14:34):
it could be. In my heart, it could be totally
based on that story about Donna Brazil, who she did
right in a memoir that for nearly my entire life,
my mother worked as a maid. Never in her wildest
dreams did she imagine that her daughter would gropp to
influence national politics or manage a presidential campaign. And I
mean it's funny that I wonder if she's sort of
(14:54):
downplaying it, because clearly this woman is determined and single minded,
and even from the age of I like, was clearly
a little politician who was able to affect change. And
speaking of her, though, women of color have been intimately
involved in grassroots political organizing since the reconstruction and early
(15:14):
civil rights eras with people like I. T. B. Wells
and Mary Church Terrell and Mary McLoud Bethoon UM who
were instrumental in the National Association of Colored Women that
was highly invested in UM activating women within black communities
to organize and get out and vote UM so that
(15:39):
they could you know, elect officials that would have their
needs in mind. UM and segueing though into today's more
establishment political machines has not surprisingly been harder not just
for women of color but for people of color in general.
And you mentioned, Caroline that Donna Brazil is so sing
(16:00):
go minded. If we look at the night Michael Dukakis campaign, Uh,
this totally reinforces and UM just goes to show how
how single minded she truly is. So essentially, like, not intentionally,
(16:20):
the campaign siloed its top tier operatives onto a separate
floor in their campaign headquarters UM, which mostly meant that
all the white dudes were up top and everyone else
was on the bottom. And Brazil and Mignon Moore were
field directors at the time, and those two plus Susan
(16:44):
Rice stormed upstairs, claimed a conference room on the top
floor and put a sign on the door that said
Colored Girls, we shall not be moved. And essentially, from
that moment, this group of women, these political consultants calling
(17:05):
themselves the Colored Girls, have become this DC force that
if you hope to get elected on you know, for
any national campaign, like, you gotta have dinner with them.
They hold these like regular dinners, and essentially candidates come
in and they grill them, basically making sure that they
(17:26):
are keeping communities of color and mind, because it's like
if if they don't like you, you're probably not going
to get elected. Yeah. Well, just like do CAUCUSUS headquarters
weren't intentionally segregated along race or gender lines. I mean
that that could stand in for all of politics. Politics
aren't necessarily intentionally segregated along those lines, but they often are.
(17:49):
And so you have women like Brazil and the rest
of the Color Girls group that form this influential contingent
of women of color who are able to advise candidates
and remind them gently or not that you can't forget
that the Democratic base rests on the vote of not
(18:13):
just white men, but people of color and women. And
so if you want to make it in this town,
like you've got to be able to think outside of
your own bubble. Well, yeah, and it's African American women's
vote in particular. Um. But one more thing about that campaign,
It is surprising that that even happened because, like you
mentioned earlier, Susan Estric was the campaign manager. It's like
(18:37):
sus s what happened. Um. But today the group of
color Girls, which they still refer to themselves as UM,
has expanded to include a few more women, including Reverend
Leady Daughtry and consultant Yolanda H. Caraway UM and also
(18:58):
the d n C General counts old Tina Flourne. And
in a New York Times profile of this group, a
number of politicians spoke to their influence, including Howard Dean,
who said, quote, they're very rare Washington insiders who understand
the rest of the country. Um. And this whole thing
speaks to why looking at who is behind the scenes
(19:22):
in these political campaigns matter, because if you only have
white men or also white women who are crafting your platforms, essentially,
then there probably aren't going to necessarily take an intersectional
approach to policymaking. Yeah, exactly, And that's why Tana Bui
(19:46):
points out in Asian American Policy Review that the campaign
staff needs to reflect constituent diversity. And she also points
out that you might have training programs if you want
to work on campaigns or in strategy. You know, there
might be a training program that's just general or ones
you know, specifically geared toward women, but there's nothing really
(20:09):
out there for people of color who want to step
up and work with campaigns and be that voice for
other populations that want to see themselves represented well and
in conversations about the gender gap within UM like our
elected officials. I think that this part of the pipeline,
the background political consulting and strategists and campaign managers, that
(20:34):
aspect of the pipeline is something that I know I
didn't think about before reading up for this podcast. We
just think of, oh, well, we just need more women
to stand up and be willing to be candidates. But
this is an integral part of getting more women in
office too, UM And that's something that Boy underscores in
terms of the pipeline issue that if you do not
(20:59):
training and empower more women of color to enter into
political strategy and have influence in that realm, than the
pipeline is still going to be leaky. Yeah, And what
I didn't realize before preparing for this episode is that
when women are working in campaigns in strategy or consulting
or whatever, they tend to be concentrated in fundraising, which
(21:23):
I had no idea. And this information is coming from
Katie Or from k qe D and Abby Rappaport from
The Texas Tribune. Uh So, basically, forever women have been
barred from those higher level strategic positions in campaigns. And
while they're more likely to be registered voters and grassroots organizers,
(21:45):
they are way less likely to rise to those elite levels.
So what is the deal? Why are these women like
shuttled off to fundraising positions? Well, first of all, this
reflects a broader trend of women in nonprofits, of it
being more acceptable for women to be in the upper
ranks of nonprofit organization that's just fundraising and raising money
(22:09):
versus to help others to help up exactly the whole
altruism thing, versus something that's considered far more masculine in
terms of being in the war room of campaign strategy.
So um, Rappaport and Or talked to a number of
women who are consultants and also fundraisers and politics, and
(22:32):
they essentially compiled the laundry list of all of these
presumably female friendly work responsibilities that we hear over and
over again in terms of many pink collar jobs. So
you have the whole thing of altruism, of humility and
(22:52):
putting others first. You're raising money not for yourself but
on behalf of this candidate and for the community at law,
which reminds me of our conversation with Gina and Ashley
from recruit Her when we talked about negotiating and how
it seems to for salary and how it seems to
be so much more acceptable for a woman to um
(23:14):
negotiate for a higher salary for someone else or based
in logic around helping others. So yeah, same exact thing,
and a lot of the women, as both a positive
and a negative, said that the duties that come along
with fundraising, like event planning, sending out invitations, and playing
(23:36):
hostess are traditionally women oriented tasks, and as Susan Lily,
a Republican consultant, put it, these tasks typically fall on women,
whether it's in politics or a wedding well, and the
whole idea too that it's detail oriented work um, and
and therefore appealing to women and therefore something that women
do better than men is something that we have heard
(24:00):
also applied to a lot of other sectors as well. UM.
Not to say that, like, don't you tell me the
women are detail oriented? I am so sloppy, right, But
it's the whole thing of like, are you saying that
being detail oriented and a planner is only a woman thing? Exactly?
Exactly um? And then there's a whole socialization aspect of it. Um.
(24:24):
This was something that Amy Boone, who started her own
consulting firm before moving over to the Texas Democratic Trust,
talked about, saying, from the time where little girls, we
are conditioned to not really be the ones raising our hands.
So again it's that that fun fundraising is feminine. Who
(24:46):
knew exactly? And then Boone went on to explain that
it's possible that women are just getting pigeonholed. She said
that it's common when a woman shows up to work
on a campaign without much experience and without much confidence,
this senior staff just tend to push her over into
a junior fundraising role where she can do things like
(25:07):
just stay behind the scenes planning, making phone calls, planning
parties and stuff like that, just basically assistant role stuff.
And so if that's the position that you're placed in
and you do want to advance, well you're probably just
going to continue advancing up that fundraising ladder. But despite
the fact that women are the overwhelming majority in fundraising,
(25:30):
if nowhere else in campaign strategy, they're still not typically
the ones making the decisions because, as Ditmark points out,
you might be in fundraising and you might be bringing
in all of this cash money, but that's not a
like clear cut strategic role the way that being, for instance,
(25:51):
a campaign manager or a media spokesperson would be. And
in a very blatantly sexist kind of way. Um, some
campaigns are simply nervous about putting women in charge of
strategy because it does violate gender norms in a lot
of ways if we think of campaigns as going to war,
(26:12):
as many political consultants do. And this was something that
Anne Urban, who began professional campaign work for Republicans way
back in nineteen She said, I think there's an old
school conservative, good old boy inclination to go with a
guy because it's too rough and tumble to be a woman. Yeah,
(26:32):
So I mean that goes hand in hand with the
pigeonholing thing and just pushing a woman off into fundraising.
If you just assume that someone who doesn't look like
you is only going to be good at one thing,
or she's not going to be good at what the
thing you're good at, then how like who's going to
break that barrier? Because if you're just operating on assumptions
(26:52):
about what a woman is cut out for. And I
think that the likability factor plays into this as well,
um where you see women who might be in those
more strategic roles shot calling likelier to be dismissed as bitches. Yeah,
and so a lot of the women that were interviewed,
(27:13):
we're talking about how you know a lot of successful
women in campaigning and campaign strategy and consulting have to
be comfortable with that. You have to be okay with
getting called a bit because it's inevitable. And one woman
pointed out like a lot of women just aren't comfortable
with that, and especially when you're starting out, and so
(27:37):
that could also get you hamstrung from progressing at the
ladder in strategy. And then you have the optics issue
because a you have um the idea that an attractive
woman is going to be better at raising money because
who doesn't want to give cash to a beautiful woman?
(27:59):
Where At a campaign manager who's going to be on
the road with a candidate, especially if that candidate is male,
if you have a lady traveling alongside him, then might
that raise some eyebrows about how close their relationship really is.
And that's something too that is not exclusive to political consulting,
(28:21):
but really, I mean workplaces at large where it's like,
it's fine if all the guys go out for a
happy hour um after work, but if a lady wants
to tag along, then then people might get a little nervous.
Well yeah, and so one of the quotes that really
sort of I had to read a couple of times
to make sure that I was reading it correctly was
from that Republican consultant Susan Lily, who said, uh, male
(28:44):
candidates don't need to be traveling with a young, attractive female.
I can give the wrong impression even though there's nothing
really wrong with it. So kind of giving into just well,
tongues will wag, so we better just not do it.
You better just avoid it. Um. But there's I mean
so many other aspects of why women get tripped up
(29:04):
trying to pursue jobs in strategy and consulting. Uh. But
of course, these are things that we see in so
many other professional fields, and we will get right back
into them when we come back from a quick break.
(29:26):
So there was this series of interviews that some researchers
conducted with consultants back in two thousand three, and they
found that those consultants, men and women alike, believed that
women in consulting political consulting face different rules of the game,
so to speak, including having to work twice as hard
to be successful in the business, not being taken as
(29:49):
seriously or seen to be as credible by candidates and
the political parties as the men folk, and having to
be careful about being too aggressive in their marketing and
approach to business. So these are not just like think
peace writers talking about this stuff. These are the consultants
themselves talking about the perceptions of women among themselves, among
(30:11):
their own ranks. And it seems like that aggressive penalty
comes up over and over again when you hear from
women in this field. Um, Liz Shatter and Powell, who's
the VP of political Strategies with Bates, Niem and Ink,
which is a democratic direct mail and issue advocacy consulting firm,
(30:32):
said that you have to be aggressive to rise to
the position as an executive director of a committee or
a partner in a consulting firm, which, again you have
that socialization aspect. This is a behavior that women are
socialized from young ages, often against UM, even though many
people in the field embrace it. UM. And you also
(30:55):
have the issue of you know, the Doug stampers, the
men in power who might not be so keen on
giving them a leg up. Yeah, and then a huge
factor UM in the field, just like it is comes
up any time we talk about women who are alive
and having children. Is the whole family and parenting aspect
(31:18):
because if you whether you're a working mom or a
stay at home mom, uh, you're socially expected to be
there for your children and your family more than you're
expected to be at work. It's the whole mommy tracking
issue We've talked about before and Uh. Angela Faulkner, who's
a Republican direct mail consultant, told the Publication Campaigns and
(31:41):
Elections that she felt huge stigma as a mom and
full time consultant, especially when she was traveling overseas for clients.
She talked about how early in her career she actually
felt resentment from other women. Not dudes, not dudes calling
her out I'm calling her about mom, but resentment from
other women who were questioning her decision to work in
(32:04):
Venezuela's recall election rather than stay home with her children. Yeah,
she said, when people talk about family values, it's usually
based on a stable home environment, and many conservatives feel
that a stable home environment requires a mother that isn't
required to travel. UM and the the child care aspect
(32:25):
also reminds me of a Glamour magazine piece that we
read profiling UM women in the current election, And one
thing that Huma Aberdeen said was if Hillary is elected,
what she's going to do the very next day is
turn off her phone and spend the day with her son,
making him pasta and taking him out for ice cream,
(32:47):
which I was like, can I come over a UM,
But it kind of drives home, like I was reminded
reading that, like, oh, yeah, you probably do not get
to see your kid all that often because it is
a twenty four seven job. Yeah, it does make me
think of how how could Doug be a father, I
mean a side stampers of cards, Doug stamper on house
(33:08):
of cards, Like how could he be let alone? All
of the you know, personality court, sociopathy. Yeah, well that too, um.
But you know, it's it's hard across the board to
make time for family or social life or anything when
you are working in a political campaign. That goes without saying,
but it turns out that those grueling schedules can make
(33:30):
certain jobs more difficult than others. For instance, media consultants
typically end up with the hardest schedules of any operatives
because you know, I mean it makes sense. You've got
to respond rapidly if something happens. If Donald Trump says
yet another thing about women are Muslims, You've got to
have your phone on to be able to respond, and
plus you've got nearly constant travel. And so that, according
(33:52):
to a lot of female operatives interviewed, is one of
the reasons that they're likely fewer women in media than
in places like polling, fun raising or direct mail. So
yet again, for many women in this industry, there is
that double standard forced choice of motherhood versus career, and
(34:12):
how are you going to make the two work together.
And obviously there are plenty of women who are doing
just that, But the issue is that men typically do
not face the same kind of decision making, right, And
I mean, it turns out, when we hinted at this earlier,
that party affiliation is definitely a factor. According to a
(34:34):
study in the Journal of Political Marketing from eleven, they
wrote that women consultants tend to work for democratic firms
consulting firms more often than Republican led ones, and that
women led firms were more likely to be hired by
democratic rather than Republican candidates. And so basically this study
echoed prior studies that found that not only are more
(34:57):
women consultants Democrats, but Democratic consulting firms are more likely
to have women named as partners, and so as a result,
Democratic candidates are more likely to hire consulting firms with
women partners. It's like gender politics math literal gender politics. Well, yeah, exactly, Well,
(35:17):
and I wonder if that kind of partisanship in this
issue goes to what Angela Faulkner, who was that Republican
direct mail consultant, talked about in terms of UH Conservatives
having a very distinct perception of family values. That's often
(35:38):
a top conservative platform, and family values often when it
comes to when you look through the Republican lens um
often involves a woman at least closer to home. But
I mean it's not like women aren't out there doing
it for themselves. They are. There are more women these
days leading campaigns, leading superpath X, and heading up consulting firms.
(36:03):
One thing I didn't expect, I guess I should have
expected it is that it's actually really hard to find numbers.
You know, Kristen and I love citing stats. It's like
our favorite thing. We love to give you percentages, but
it's hard to find clear cut percentages and stats when
you're dealing with so many private firms and behind the scenes,
uh makeups and breakdowns of demographics, which again I mean
(36:25):
like ridiculous that that is the case in something that
lives and breathes by data. But of course, I mean
it's data and also image, so there's only select data
that you would probably want visible to the public. Um.
But you do have more women who are starting their
own consulting firms, and it's not just democratic women. You
(36:49):
have Katie Packer, Gauge, Ashley O'Connor and Christine Matthews who
got together and founded the Republican focused firm Burning Glass
US Consulting UM, because the Democratic narrative about the GOP
has been the whole war on women. So these three
(37:10):
consultants got together and we're like, you know, this whole
tone deafness issue that a number of Republican candidates have
had when it comes to women is something that we
could really focus on. And the whole Burning Glass aspect
of their name comes from the idea that they're going
to be so laser focus, like it's like a sunbeam
(37:31):
that could burn through the glass. I think I got
that right, basically, Yeah, exactly. But according to Sarah Brewer,
who's the former associate director of the Women in Politics
Institute an American university, UH found through her research that
female political consultants often work twice as long in the
field before starting their own firms than men do. And
(37:55):
the speculation around that, I mean, there's a couple of
reasons that could be one. And you need obviously kind
of a fat rolodex of clients and connections to start
your own thing, and if you are not in a
client contact heavy position, it's harder to make those direct connections. Uh.
There's also the thing that we've seen so often when
(38:17):
we talk about women or really any minority group, uh,
in a professional capacity, that there's often this need to
feel that you have to work harder to prove yourself.
And that makes it sound like you just internalized that
and feel like you have to do that. But often
people around you, I guess in this case it would
be the white guys and working in the campaign expect
(38:38):
you to work harder. Well. And I mean the very
fact that Burning Glass Consulting received a New York Times
profile an interview by Amanda Hess insulate all of this
media coverage because it was three Republican women, you know,
forming this consulting firm, I think speaks to how you
(39:00):
of this. This is kind of a rarity. Oh yeah,
I mean, and especially when it comes to Republican consulting,
right exactly. Um, But INLVE, women ran more than half
of the thirteen most competitive Democratic Senate campaigns, and that
year women were also in charge of two key campaign committees,
the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
(39:24):
But uh, those are both back to being headed by dudes,
So it's not like a permanent change. Um. And again
that increase in women operatives has been stronger on the
Democratic side, and in twelve on the Republican side, there
was just one female manager working on those top thirteen
most competitive Senate races. So as we are seeing slowly
(39:48):
but surely the numbers of women in political campaigning increasing,
the question is why is this happening? Um? So it
could have to do with an influx of money into
and the professionalization of campaigns, which creates more opportunities for consultants. Um.
I mean, the way that political campaigns are funded have
(40:12):
has been a major issue on the Democratic side of
the presidential race this year. Um. And you also have
a deeper bench of female operatives who have gradually risen
to the top, not to mention an increasing focus and
just general acknowledgement that female voters win elections. I mean,
(40:37):
women essentially are the people who decide who at least
gets to the White House. Yeah. And another big aspect
of this is the proliferation, like dandelions on your front yard,
of super PACs. And those super PACs offer men or
women more job flexibility and and schedule fle stability. Than
(41:00):
working directly for candidates. And that's so that's attractive to
anyone male or female who has a family or you know,
I don't know, like seventeen cats, like whatever, you know,
or like a bocci ball league on the weekends, like
whatever you want to do to make your life more rewarding,
you would have a little bit more time for it.
And Alexandria lap who's the executive director of the House
(41:24):
Majority Pack, says, yeah, I'm not getting a call at
eleven pm from the D Triple C chair of Congressman
so and so you answer to your donors, but it's
different than answering to a politician. And super Packs, by
the way, in case you are not familiar, it's their
job to raise and spend a ton of money, but
(41:44):
they can't donate money directly to candidates. So there is
that layer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, there is that layer
of separations. So, yeah, you're not answering directly to like
an angry candidate or an angry campaign manager who wants
to talk to you in the middle of the night.
Oh gosh, what if Doug Stamper called you in the
middle of the night, chilling. I don't think i'd answer
(42:04):
I don't have the the exact numbers in front of me,
But in terms of women of color and political activism,
there's also been an exponential um influx of packs forming
specifically to um engage those groups. I mean, for instance,
you have Rosario Dawson's co founded Voto Latino UM and
(42:29):
all sorts of groups like that that have risen in
just I mean the past five ten years. Yeah, because
politically you kind of have to fight fire with fire,
and by fire I mean cash. Money's lots and lots
of cash moneys, like a Scrooge McDuck pool of money
to buy ads that's not directly contributing to a politician.
(42:51):
But politics, I know, I know, I just I hate it.
I was thinking today actually, when we were preparing to
come into the studio, Like I looked out the window
wistfully and I just thought, God, I would kill for
candidates who were just humans, you know what I mean.
Like you can like and respect a candidate all you
(43:13):
want all day long, and like get caught up in
the idealism and believe what he or she says and
be behind them, But God, I would feel so much
better if candidates were just like, yeah, you know this
thing over here sucks like well, I mean, I think
some of that is due to the fact that we
are a two party system, so you have, you know,
(43:37):
like two people who are going for like such a
diverse yeah, massive group of people. Yeah. I was just
so when Baynard called Chris Lucifer in the flesh, I
was just like, that is I'm not even a Republican.
Was that the realist moment for you? So far? That
was a campaign that one of the realist moments? And
(43:57):
I was like, God, that's refreshing. Well. And one thing
we you know, haven't even gotten into and and don't
have time to is the rise of the kind of
superstar political manager like a Karl Rove. I mean, I
think that he's probably the most intense example of that.
I mean that that man has really, in a lot
(44:20):
of ways, um changed American culture. I mean, he's responsible,
I think, for a vast majority of the conservative political
climate right now. Well. Yeah, and even with Karl Rove,
though you had Karen Hughes, I think only temporarily. I
don't think she was with George Bush for the long haul.
She had worked with him back in Texas UM and
(44:41):
worked with him on one, if not both, of his
election presidential election campaigns. Um, so you did have a
woman sort of like in the wings behind row. But
for all of his puppet mastering, Karl Rove gets both
the credit and the blame for all of the stuff
that happened in George Bush's presidency. Well, and he's positioned
(45:03):
himself in that way too, because I mean, I don't
know that I've ever seen Karen Hughes on television before,
but when you have Karl Robe all the time. Yeah,
And that's that's one thing we were reading about two
is like how in this modern era you do have
people like Mary Magdalene and James Carville, Karl Rove, Donna Brazil,
(45:24):
people who are political consultants who even like in the
boom times of the seventies and eighties when they first emerged,
still we're behind the scenes. And slowly but surely or
pretty quickly, I guess, they became the talking heads on
your cable news networks, you know, your columnists in newspapers,
(45:45):
and they have become celebrities and pseudo politicians in their
own right. Well. Yeah, speaking of House of Cards, Donna
Brazil has made two cameos on the show. I mean
James Carville was in old school. I don't know, like
that is a fact in my brain that um, I
wish it could be replaced with something more useful. UM.
But I mean James Craffel has made so many cameos
(46:07):
and all sorts of stuff. Um. And but that whole
thing too, I would attribute going back to old j
school days, journalism school where Caroline and I first met. Um.
It's all about the twenty four hour news cycle too,
so of course they're pulling from the stable of people
who are really good about talking politics and also spinning
(46:27):
and kind of you know, uh, shooting from the hip
with Wolf Blitzer, Yeah who. I once flew in a
plane with Um and he was carrying a garment bag
onto the plane and it was monogrammed with his wolf initials,
and I was hoping it would just be like an
(46:48):
airbrushed picture of a wolf. God. I wish, I wish, um,
But I think the most surprising thing was that his
beard was almost translucent. Strange. I thought you were going
to say it was like a fake sand of b
that was tied on behind his ears. Also, I wish,
but I want your your wolf Blitzer. Um. I was
on a plane with Kathleen Sebelius, one time former head
(47:08):
of Health and Human Services. We made eye contact when
there was a really annoying woman talking on her cell phone.
Kathleen I waved to her, um, anyway, if you're listening,
shout out, um So anyway, it's kind of obvious and
goes without saying. And in Kristen you already touched on
this earlier in the podcast that if you don't represent
(47:30):
the population in your campaign, in your strategy, like, it's
obviously going to ding you because you're not going to
be able to fully get the picture of your electorate.
And dip Marcus, can you imagine? Um ditmar writing about
this says you have to be able to understand how
to speak to all voters, including hello, over of the population,
(47:54):
which is women voters, and she points out as if
she needs to that listen, you guys. There is value
in women's experiences and women's voices, and that value can
be applied to shaping policy. Okay, of course I agree
with all of that, of course, but we have a
(48:15):
massive glaring exception to the idea that you will get
dinged at the polls. If you don't know how to
speak to all voters, and that would be the runaway
success of one Donald J. Trump, formerly drump But he
yet well, yeah, but he's not doing well in the
(48:37):
polls with women, right, but he's still the as of
the time that we are recording this podcast. Who knows
what will have changed when this episode publishes. He's the
presumptive Republican nominee and it doesn't matter. He doesn't even
he doesn't need women. I mean, granted in the general election,
I would be surprised if it didn't come back to
(48:58):
haunt him. Um. But it it's I mean, the the
American electorate also is so um. I don't I don't
know how a good word to describe it. It's so
polarized at this point, it's so extremely polarized that unfortunately,
(49:18):
you can make excluding certain people's rights and liberties, including
not only um women, but also Muslims in the case
of the Trump campaigns, and really anyone who's not wearing
a Make America Grade Again hat and not wearing it ironically. Um,
(49:41):
but that you can, you can do that and unfortunately succeed. Yeah,
but like you said, I mean, he's a runaway success
with a very specific demographic. He would not, I don't
think do very well in the general against Hilary or Bernie.
(50:01):
We'll see fingers hell. I mean at this point though, UM,
And I'm really curious to hear from our listeners outside
of the US about all of this too, because I'm
sure it just looks like nonsense happening. It is it is.
I mean, I don't, I don't. I can't even make
any predictions at this point. No. I asked my father
(50:23):
who he was voting for, and uh, he just kind
of looks at me, because he and I do not
talk politics, and he just looked at me and he said,
I'll be voting for Kasik after the contested uh nomination.
So but I mean, that's another interesting example of you
can not have women's best interest at heart. But if
(50:43):
you keep quiet about how you feel about women as
opposed to Donald Trump, well maybe Beth Harden, his campaign manager,
has had something to do with that. Who knows exactly. UM,
But of course it's not these aren't do desirable outcomes,
you know, we would like to see UM people elected
(51:04):
who do UM value women, UM, not just as like humans,
is like beautiful objects, like Donald Trump has but as um,
you know, people who should be kept in mind when
making and passing policy. And that is one reason why
we need to give a massive shout out to Emily's List,
(51:28):
which is a political action committee for pro choice Democratic
female candidates. Um. If you don't know who they are,
go look them up. Um they're terrific. Um. And just McIntosh,
who works with them, agrees that. I mean, it's simply
a practicality to have women working in your campaign. She says,
(51:51):
by having women and leadership roles, you're going to have
more needed perspectives about messaging, reaching voters, all of that.
When she was speaking to Vocative, Well, what I thought
was so interesting and telling. Remember that two thousand three
consultant study that I mentioned a little while ago. Yes, yes, rewind.
(52:13):
If you don't on your tape deck, your podcast tape deck, rewind.
This comes out on cassettes, right Yeah, well how yeah,
people order them on those. Um you remember those like
cassette services like Columbia, like Titus Andromeda Schmidt subscribed to exactly. Um.
So you know they talked to a bunch of consultants,
male and female, and seventy of the women they talked to,
(52:36):
and just thirty percent of the men believed that women
brought a unique perspective to the campaign and that this
perspective could be used strategically to win elections. So interesting,
because then, if you don't believe that women have a
unique perspective, and you are accustomed to hiring and promoting
people who are like you, why why would you make
(53:01):
a special effort to bring women in Yet again, I
feel like this is just a microcosm of issues that
we see across industries right well, which is why so
many women interviewed in the articles that we read for
this episode cited the importance of mentors who can help
guide you through those gender expectations, through those mind field,
those political mind fields, and the importance of women helping
(53:21):
and hiring other women. It's not uncommon, according to a
lot of the women we read uh for women in
campaigns and consulting firms to band together, at least within
their own parties and commit to helping bring up promising
young women that live Chatter and Powell, who we cited earlier,
encourages female candidates and female oriented packs to work only
(53:43):
with female consultants. And it's worth noting that women candidates do,
in fact, tend to hire more women to work on
their campaigns than male candidates do, and she says if
we don't help our own, we will never be successful
at tearing down walls. Um She said that in one
campaign that she was working on, a male staff member,
a Democratic male staff member, told her that he she
(54:06):
couldn't run one of his top Senate campaign races because quote,
I was female and none of his candidates would take
orders from a woman. That's that's my eloquent response to that. Yeah,
and so um Pal also writes that women can at
least be there for each other to help encourage one
(54:28):
another to stick it out. She says women are way
more likely than men in this field of work to basically,
I mean, for lack of a better word, and I'm
just gonna use the buzzword, but lean out when they
decide that they want a quote unquote real job that
will afford them some free time to have a family
or whatever. Um and So she envisions pal and visions
(54:49):
this landscape where you have training seminars that are exclusively
for female operatives, given exclusively by female consultants that would
then after the fact offer a consistent stream of mentoring
support to help women stick it out, or really just
to help women plan their career trajectories in whatever political
direction they want to go. Yeah, I mean it's an
(55:11):
exhausting job. I can only imagine UM getting into this field. So, um,
I'm curious to hear if there are any listeners who
are currently campaigning for UM for candidates right now, or
who have done so in the past, who can give
us more feet on the street insights into this. And
(55:32):
before we get into listener mail, I want to quickly
correct myself. Um, just a minute ago, when we were
mentioning Kimmy Schmidt, I refer to Titus Andromedas. His name
is Titus Andromedon. Tins Andromedas is actually a band that
I used to listen to all the time. So listeners,
(55:53):
don't don't worry. Don't worry. I know, I know. Um. So,
I just wanted to make that a very important point clear. Sorry,
I was our I was just envisioning. I didn't even
hear you finish that because I was just envisioning tied
us breaking that tape and having so um. Yeah, I
just I just assumed you said it correctly. Well, listeners,
(56:14):
now we want to hear from you. Mom Stuff at
how Stuff Works dot Com is our email address. You
can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages
on Facebook. And if by chance you know Donna Brasilt
pullease send her our best. And we've got a couple
of messages this year with you right now. Well, I
(56:36):
have a letter here from Sarah in response to our
episode on the comfort women of World War Two. She says,
I was surprised to discover a bit of my own
family history. My grandfather is a renowned cardiologist now, but
got his start as a brigade surgeon in the Army
during World War Two in the Pacific Theater. For most
of my life he never ever talked about the war. However,
(56:58):
as I've gotten older I'm thirty two and have since
enlisted in the Air Force, he felt comfortable enough telling
me bits and pieces about his service. Shortly after the
war ended, my grandfather was in Japan trying to prevent
epidemics from breaking out among the troops. One of his
duties while there was apparently delousing the women high ranking
military officers slept with. I never realized quite what that
(57:21):
meant until right now. That's such a terrible position to
be in. I guess I now know why he never
wanted to talk to me about that job in particular.
Thanks for the clarity, and thanks for everything you ladies do.
I listen to your podcast all the time. Well thanks,
Sarah So. I gotta let her here from Lena offering
some clarifications and corrections about that episode. Um so So,
(57:45):
she says, we, referring to Koreans, aren't just upset about
the comfort women issue. Japan to date has never actually apologized,
and they continue to refuse to do so. The last
so called apology was more of a we're sorry you
went through that. In recent years, Japan tried to eliminate
a monument to comfort women from various countries, including Korea,
(58:07):
the Philippines, China, and other countries. And she goes on
to say, I get the things happened and need to
be discussed, but depicting Korean culture as one where men
would prostitute their own daughters honestly makes it sound like
you're trying to reduce the seriousness of what Japan did
in numerous countries. As you mentioned, one of the worst
things these women face post war was a social shame
(58:29):
of their experience and the ways in which they were
severely abused. Being raped wasn't always seen as a sign
that you were a victim and will take care of you.
They were tainted, so everything they went through shouldn't be minimized.
China in particular shouldn't be forgotten. Their government and people
have been extremely active in pushing for apologies and some
sign that they might not repeat the same acts if
(58:50):
given the chance. Korea's government has let us down, and
China's government has continued to pursue numerous issues. I'm not
trying to be harsh, and I love all of your
podcast us. I found time and again that your research
on numerous Asian issues has been extremely well done. This
just happens to be a particularly sore spot that isn't
just a problem for former quote unquote comfort women. A
(59:11):
term that really needs to die anyway. It was created
by Japan specifically to try to tone down the horrific
nature of what was done to them. So thank you
for writing in Lena, and thanks to everybody who's written
into us. Mom Stabbitt, how suffwork dot Com is where
you can send your letters and thrillingks all of our
social media as well as all of our blogs, videos,
(59:32):
and podcasts with our sources so you can learn more
about women and political campaigns. Head on over to stuff
Mom Never Told You dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot
com
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff.
I never told your production of I Hiart Radio's House
Stuff works. For today's classic, we wanted to spotlight another
podcast that we think you might enjoy, called Modern Rules,
(00:27):
and that's Rules as an r U h L E.
S As in Stephanie Rules, UM, who has done a
lot of work outside of MSNBC, but you've probably seen
her on MSNBC. UM. She talks about all kinds of
things that we we talk about on this show, like feminism,
big one, masculinity, privilege, political correctness, the me too movement, UM,
(00:53):
social media, and faith and moral leadership. So if you're
interested in checking that out, please do UM. And for
this our classic episode, something that kind of ties into
that uh and is also pretty important right now. It's
very timely, is awhere are the women in political campaigns?
(01:14):
And uh, I feel like we're we're working on something
around this as well about women in politics in general
and what that looks like today. And so keep your
ear out for that one. Yeah, keep your your handcuffed
to your ear. And when you hear the notification like
a and then it's not that one, but it will
(01:35):
be eventually I'm sorry. I'm building a whole story in
my head. Um, But in the meantime, we hope you
enjoy this classic episode. Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told
You from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome
(01:57):
to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline And this
week could be considered a House of Cards week on
Stuff Mom Never Told You. Today we're talking about campaign strategists. Yeah,
because typically when you hear from a campaign strategist or
(02:17):
about one, it's usually a dude. Yeah, and so why
is that? Why is that? Um? And speaking of House
of Cards, before we get into women in political campaigning
and strategy, can we just take a moment to talk
about uh, Corey Lewandowski, who to me is Doug Stamper
(02:40):
on House of Cards. I R L will tell the
people who he is, Okay, So besides being a real
life Doug, he is a real life Doug. People who
have not seen House of Cards are just so confused
right now. Um. So, Uh, Corey Lewandowski is Donald Trump's
campaign manager and he's been extremely visible throughout the whole campaign. Um.
(03:03):
I would say that he's been the most visible campaign
manager partially because he was charged with simple battery of
former Bright Bart reporter Michelle Fields. Um. The charges have
since been dropped. But he is what you would expect
Donald Trump's campaign manager to be. I mean, he's opinionated,
(03:27):
he's pretty, let's say, rough and tumble. I like, how
diplomatic you're being. Well, this is all about campaign strategy
and spin. So Carolina trying to like really just get
into the spirit of it. Yeah, but didn't he like
he pushed her, right, Yeah. I watched the security footage
you can see it online, and he grabs her and
(03:49):
pulls her away. I mean it's kind of hard to
see what exactly went down, but um, yeah it was.
I mean just just the very idea of that happening
seemed just I'm a stranger than fiction. Although we can't
like this political season, we should just expect stuff like
(04:11):
that to be happening, you know. I Mean it's almost
like on like low on the list of bizarro things
that have happened so far. I know, just the the
day before we came into the studio to record this podcast,
Baynard referred to Ted Cruise as Lucifer in the flesh,
like things are just so weird politically like things are
(04:33):
so weird, and instead of focusing on the people out
front like Ted Cruz, Carlie Furina, Donald Trump, et cetera,
we wanted to pull back the curtain and look at
the political machinery because obviously, with all the money but
now goes into political campaigning, there's so much background work
(04:55):
to hone messages and optics and events, and you have
when you look at the gender breakdown of who does
what behind the scenes of political campaigns, you have um
a little pocket where women are are um welcomed, and
then the rest of it. It's pretty tough for a lady.
(05:20):
It can be pretty tough for a lady to branch
out in in the strategy realm. But first I wanted
to take a look at people behind the scenes in general,
so campaigns staffers, because I'm sure a lot of you
saw that big Jezebel piece that was looking at how
men and women in campaign staffs are paid and how
(05:43):
many are employed, and overall the numbers are pretty pretty bad.
Uh So, this again is coming from Jezebel, and the
the campaign with the highest paid discrepancy between men and
women was Ted Cruz. Uh. Male employees make an average
of twenty more than female employ ways in that campaign.
The now defunct Rubio campaign actually paid women the best.
(06:05):
They made on average just more than five thousand dollars
more than male staffers. And of ten of the ten
highest paid staffers on the sadly defunct Rubio campaign, which
a lot of people BT dubs in the primaries are
still voting for Rubio over Casic. For instance, UM six
for female. Six out of ten on the Rubio highest
(06:26):
paid staffer list were female. Not so for Bernie. He
is literally the only candidate who has no women in
his top ten highest paid employees. But he has paid
the women in his campaign equitably. In fact, on average
they're making a little under one thousand dollars more than
the men. And then if we look at Hillary Clinton,
(06:50):
men and women were making essentially the same amount, and
of her ten highest paid staffers, uh, sixer dudes for
our ladies, um, one of them being Whoma Aberdeen, who's
one of the biggest names really in political campaigning period.
She's Hillary's chief of staff and her campaign's vice chairwoman. Um.
(07:13):
And she also was on Call your girlfriend not that
long ago, which was uh interesting to hear. I mean,
like I'd never She's been featured in a number of magazines,
um in profiles and obviously his gotten a lot of
attention because her husband is Anthony Weener. Um. But it
was it was nice to hear whom I have just
(07:35):
kind of off the cuff conversation as off the cuff
as a chief of staff can be. Yeah. And I
love knowing that she started working for Hillary as an
intern at the White House in so she's been with
her a long time. Um. And if you look at Trump,
out of his ten highest paid staff members, seven or
men and three or women. Uh. And women on average
(07:57):
make three thousand dollars less than men their male counter.
It's for the Trump campaign and John Kasik is actually
the only candidate who has a female campaign manager. Her
name's Beth Hanson. And actually Mike Huckabee two did too,
he hired his daughter, but you know he's long gone
as well, I mean from the campaign right, not from
from Earth correct? Okay, um uh yeah. I find it
(08:21):
so ironic that k Sick has the lone woman campaign manager,
Beth Hanson, because his policies regarding women, as he's been um,
Ohio governor, have not been so Lady friendly again, you're
being so diplomatic. Um. So he oversaw massive shutdowns of
(08:44):
abortion providers in the state. He passed two thousand thirteen
budget to defund Planned Parenthood while mandating ultrasounds. Um. And
in an interview with Beth Hansen in lm agazine, the
interviewer asked, like, what she thought about when k Sick
(09:06):
essentially shut down um a young woman's question in one
of his events by saying, oh, look, I don't I
don't have any tickets to the Taylor Swift concert. And
and L Magazine was understandably like, okay, Like, how do
you answer to that? How can you say that your
(09:27):
candidate is still like a woman friendly person? And she
was like, well, you know, he has young daughters, he
has teenage daughters, and he's just you know, I think
it was just like he was trying to be funny,
and I mean, it was just like spin spin spin spin. Um.
But apparently she's been she's been with him for quite
a while as well. Um. But if we look at
the gender breakdown in terms of UH numbers, just like
(09:50):
of staffers, every campaign minus Hillary Clinton's has employed significantly
more men than women, which does reflect just the roader
trend in politics. But for sure I was heartened to
see that Hillary Clinton, the one woman running for president,
did hire or has hired more women on her staff
(10:10):
than men. Yeah, and we will and it's not just Hillary.
We will talk about that aspect of women in politics
here again in a little bit. But you know, the
whole skewing male thing obviously has been going on for
for a minute. The political consulting field itself rose to
prominence in the nineteen seventies and eighties. This is when
(10:31):
you start to see the professionalization of people working on campaigns,
and of course consulting that sort of encompasses a broad
range of positions, everything from campaign managers to people who
were just consulting on like media appearances and things like that.
So it's kind of a broad range of positions. Um,
(10:51):
it was in that we see the first ever female
campaign manager, Susan Estric. She was hired to run Democrat
Michael Dukakis's bid for president back then in the eighties.
But also, didn't she get it. She was kind of
the runner up. Oh yeah, she was not the first choice. Yeah,
the dude he wanted to hire was I don't know,
(11:12):
other otherwise engaged washing his hair. Um. In two thousand
four Mary Beth k Hill, John Kerry's campaign manager, was
the only woman in that role UH for that presidential race.
And in eleven, according to often quoted Rhetger's political science
(11:32):
professor Kelly ditmar Uh, she was looking at political consultants,
which again that encompasses strategists, polsters, ad makers, managers, media advisors, UH,
people who were working in top firms on senatorial and
gubernatorial races those years eleven, and she found that about
seventy of consultants with strategic influence were men, but a
(11:57):
higher number of women were working on Democrat at campaigns
than on Republican ones. And that's like you see that
every year, almost in every type of race, at every
level of government, that more women are working for the Democrats,
more women are in the higher levels of those consulting
firms who work with Democrats. Yeah. So in two thousand
(12:19):
and fourteen, for instance, among key Senate races, six percent
of GOP campaigns had female managers versus of Democratic campaigns.
And that was something that met Romney's former deputy campaign
manager manager called disturbing in terms of the lack of
senior level women. Yeah, I mean so basically, when you
(12:42):
are reading articles about women in consulting in campaign strategy,
you just hear a couple of names over and over again,
some of like the o g women consultants and strategists,
and Republicans for instance, had poster Linda duvol Operative, Maria Cino,
and of course consultant Mary Madaline who she's almost more
(13:07):
famous for being married to James Carvel. They of the
opposite political ends of the spectrum. And for the Democrats
back in the day, you had media group gurus like
Mandy Grenwald and Don Legwin's and posters Salinda Lake and
Diane Feldman. Not to mention, superstar strategist and one of
my favorite Twitter presence is Donna brazil Yeah. I was
(13:30):
telling Caroline before we came in the studio to record
that Donna Brazila is one of the only things that
I really enjoy about watching CNN during elections, and she
is a political force to be reckoned with. Not to mention,
she's made history. Um so, she worked on every presidential
(13:52):
campaign from nineteen seventy six to two thousand and when
she ran Al Gore's two thousand campaign, Pane she became
the first African American man or woman to manage a
presidential campaign. Um, and I love this fact about her.
She first got involved in politics when she was nine
(14:13):
years old, working to elect a city council member who
promised to build a playground in her neighborhood, which immediately
made me wonder, like, was that Leslie Nope from Parks
and Wreck, because it would how perfect would that be? Um?
I know that's impossible because Leslie Nope is not real technically, Um,
(14:34):
it could be. In my heart, it could be totally
based on that story about Donna Brazil, who she did
right in a memoir that for nearly my entire life,
my mother worked as a maid. Never in her wildest
dreams did she imagine that her daughter would gropp to
influence national politics or manage a presidential campaign. And I
mean it's funny that I wonder if she's sort of
(14:54):
downplaying it, because clearly this woman is determined and single minded,
and even from the age of I like, was clearly
a little politician who was able to affect change. And
speaking of her, though, women of color have been intimately
involved in grassroots political organizing since the reconstruction and early
(15:14):
civil rights eras with people like I. T. B. Wells
and Mary Church Terrell and Mary McLoud Bethoon UM who
were instrumental in the National Association of Colored Women that
was highly invested in UM activating women within black communities
to organize and get out and vote UM so that
(15:39):
they could you know, elect officials that would have their
needs in mind. UM and segueing though into today's more
establishment political machines has not surprisingly been harder not just
for women of color but for people of color in general.
And you mentioned, Caroline that Donna Brazil is so sing
(16:00):
go minded. If we look at the night Michael Dukakis campaign, Uh,
this totally reinforces and UM just goes to show how
how single minded she truly is. So essentially, like, not intentionally,
(16:20):
the campaign siloed its top tier operatives onto a separate
floor in their campaign headquarters UM, which mostly meant that
all the white dudes were up top and everyone else
was on the bottom. And Brazil and Mignon Moore were
field directors at the time, and those two plus Susan
(16:44):
Rice stormed upstairs, claimed a conference room on the top
floor and put a sign on the door that said
Colored Girls, we shall not be moved. And essentially, from
that moment, this group of women, these political consultants calling
(17:05):
themselves the Colored Girls, have become this DC force that
if you hope to get elected on you know, for
any national campaign, like, you gotta have dinner with them.
They hold these like regular dinners, and essentially candidates come
in and they grill them, basically making sure that they
(17:26):
are keeping communities of color and mind, because it's like
if if they don't like you, you're probably not going
to get elected. Yeah. Well, just like do CAUCUSUS headquarters
weren't intentionally segregated along race or gender lines. I mean
that that could stand in for all of politics. Politics
aren't necessarily intentionally segregated along those lines, but they often are.
(17:49):
And so you have women like Brazil and the rest
of the Color Girls group that form this influential contingent
of women of color who are able to advise candidates
and remind them gently or not that you can't forget
that the Democratic base rests on the vote of not
(18:13):
just white men, but people of color and women. And
so if you want to make it in this town,
like you've got to be able to think outside of
your own bubble. Well, yeah, and it's African American women's
vote in particular. Um. But one more thing about that campaign,
It is surprising that that even happened because, like you
mentioned earlier, Susan Estric was the campaign manager. It's like
(18:37):
sus s what happened. Um. But today the group of
color Girls, which they still refer to themselves as UM,
has expanded to include a few more women, including Reverend
Leady Daughtry and consultant Yolanda H. Caraway UM and also
(18:58):
the d n C General counts old Tina Flourne. And
in a New York Times profile of this group, a
number of politicians spoke to their influence, including Howard Dean,
who said, quote, they're very rare Washington insiders who understand
the rest of the country. Um. And this whole thing
speaks to why looking at who is behind the scenes
(19:22):
in these political campaigns matter, because if you only have
white men or also white women who are crafting your platforms, essentially,
then there probably aren't going to necessarily take an intersectional
approach to policymaking. Yeah, exactly, And that's why Tana Bui
(19:46):
points out in Asian American Policy Review that the campaign
staff needs to reflect constituent diversity. And she also points
out that you might have training programs if you want
to work on campaigns or in strategy. You know, there
might be a training program that's just general or ones
you know, specifically geared toward women, but there's nothing really
(20:09):
out there for people of color who want to step
up and work with campaigns and be that voice for
other populations that want to see themselves represented well and
in conversations about the gender gap within UM like our
elected officials. I think that this part of the pipeline,
the background political consulting and strategists and campaign managers, that
(20:34):
aspect of the pipeline is something that I know I
didn't think about before reading up for this podcast. We
just think of, oh, well, we just need more women
to stand up and be willing to be candidates. But
this is an integral part of getting more women in
office too, UM And that's something that Boy underscores in
terms of the pipeline issue that if you do not
(20:59):
training and empower more women of color to enter into
political strategy and have influence in that realm, than the
pipeline is still going to be leaky. Yeah, And what
I didn't realize before preparing for this episode is that
when women are working in campaigns in strategy or consulting
or whatever, they tend to be concentrated in fundraising, which
(21:23):
I had no idea. And this information is coming from
Katie Or from k qe D and Abby Rappaport from
The Texas Tribune. Uh So, basically, forever women have been
barred from those higher level strategic positions in campaigns. And
while they're more likely to be registered voters and grassroots organizers,
(21:45):
they are way less likely to rise to those elite levels.
So what is the deal? Why are these women like
shuttled off to fundraising positions? Well, first of all, this
reflects a broader trend of women in nonprofits, of it
being more acceptable for women to be in the upper
ranks of nonprofit organization that's just fundraising and raising money
(22:09):
versus to help others to help up exactly the whole
altruism thing, versus something that's considered far more masculine in
terms of being in the war room of campaign strategy.
So um, Rappaport and Or talked to a number of
women who are consultants and also fundraisers and politics, and
(22:32):
they essentially compiled the laundry list of all of these
presumably female friendly work responsibilities that we hear over and
over again in terms of many pink collar jobs. So
you have the whole thing of altruism, of humility and
(22:52):
putting others first. You're raising money not for yourself but
on behalf of this candidate and for the community at law,
which reminds me of our conversation with Gina and Ashley
from recruit Her when we talked about negotiating and how
it seems to for salary and how it seems to
be so much more acceptable for a woman to um
(23:14):
negotiate for a higher salary for someone else or based
in logic around helping others. So yeah, same exact thing,
and a lot of the women, as both a positive
and a negative, said that the duties that come along
with fundraising, like event planning, sending out invitations, and playing
(23:36):
hostess are traditionally women oriented tasks, and as Susan Lily,
a Republican consultant, put it, these tasks typically fall on women,
whether it's in politics or a wedding well, and the
whole idea too that it's detail oriented work um, and
and therefore appealing to women and therefore something that women
do better than men is something that we have heard
(24:00):
also applied to a lot of other sectors as well. UM.
Not to say that, like, don't you tell me the
women are detail oriented? I am so sloppy, right, But
it's the whole thing of like, are you saying that
being detail oriented and a planner is only a woman thing? Exactly?
Exactly um? And then there's a whole socialization aspect of it. Um.
(24:24):
This was something that Amy Boone, who started her own
consulting firm before moving over to the Texas Democratic Trust,
talked about, saying, from the time where little girls, we
are conditioned to not really be the ones raising our hands.
So again it's that that fun fundraising is feminine. Who
(24:46):
knew exactly? And then Boone went on to explain that
it's possible that women are just getting pigeonholed. She said
that it's common when a woman shows up to work
on a campaign without much experience and without much confidence,
this senior staff just tend to push her over into
a junior fundraising role where she can do things like
(25:07):
just stay behind the scenes planning, making phone calls, planning
parties and stuff like that, just basically assistant role stuff.
And so if that's the position that you're placed in
and you do want to advance, well you're probably just
going to continue advancing up that fundraising ladder. But despite
the fact that women are the overwhelming majority in fundraising,
(25:30):
if nowhere else in campaign strategy, they're still not typically
the ones making the decisions because, as Ditmark points out,
you might be in fundraising and you might be bringing
in all of this cash money, but that's not a
like clear cut strategic role the way that being, for instance,
(25:51):
a campaign manager or a media spokesperson would be. And
in a very blatantly sexist kind of way. Um, some
campaigns are simply nervous about putting women in charge of
strategy because it does violate gender norms in a lot
of ways if we think of campaigns as going to war,
(26:12):
as many political consultants do. And this was something that
Anne Urban, who began professional campaign work for Republicans way
back in nineteen She said, I think there's an old
school conservative, good old boy inclination to go with a
guy because it's too rough and tumble to be a woman. Yeah,
(26:32):
So I mean that goes hand in hand with the
pigeonholing thing and just pushing a woman off into fundraising.
If you just assume that someone who doesn't look like
you is only going to be good at one thing,
or she's not going to be good at what the
thing you're good at, then how like who's going to
break that barrier? Because if you're just operating on assumptions
(26:52):
about what a woman is cut out for. And I
think that the likability factor plays into this as well,
um where you see women who might be in those
more strategic roles shot calling likelier to be dismissed as bitches. Yeah,
and so a lot of the women that were interviewed,
(27:13):
we're talking about how you know a lot of successful
women in campaigning and campaign strategy and consulting have to
be comfortable with that. You have to be okay with
getting called a bit because it's inevitable. And one woman
pointed out like a lot of women just aren't comfortable
with that, and especially when you're starting out, and so
(27:37):
that could also get you hamstrung from progressing at the
ladder in strategy. And then you have the optics issue
because a you have um the idea that an attractive
woman is going to be better at raising money because
who doesn't want to give cash to a beautiful woman?
(27:59):
Where At a campaign manager who's going to be on
the road with a candidate, especially if that candidate is male,
if you have a lady traveling alongside him, then might
that raise some eyebrows about how close their relationship really is.
And that's something too that is not exclusive to political consulting,
(28:21):
but really, I mean workplaces at large where it's like,
it's fine if all the guys go out for a
happy hour um after work, but if a lady wants
to tag along, then then people might get a little nervous.
Well yeah, and so one of the quotes that really
sort of I had to read a couple of times
to make sure that I was reading it correctly was
from that Republican consultant Susan Lily, who said, uh, male
(28:44):
candidates don't need to be traveling with a young, attractive female.
I can give the wrong impression even though there's nothing
really wrong with it. So kind of giving into just well,
tongues will wag, so we better just not do it.
You better just avoid it. Um. But there's I mean
so many other aspects of why women get tripped up
(29:04):
trying to pursue jobs in strategy and consulting. Uh. But
of course, these are things that we see in so
many other professional fields, and we will get right back
into them when we come back from a quick break.
(29:26):
So there was this series of interviews that some researchers
conducted with consultants back in two thousand three, and they
found that those consultants, men and women alike, believed that
women in consulting political consulting face different rules of the game,
so to speak, including having to work twice as hard
to be successful in the business, not being taken as
(29:49):
seriously or seen to be as credible by candidates and
the political parties as the men folk, and having to
be careful about being too aggressive in their marketing and
approach to business. So these are not just like think
peace writers talking about this stuff. These are the consultants
themselves talking about the perceptions of women among themselves, among
(30:11):
their own ranks. And it seems like that aggressive penalty
comes up over and over again when you hear from
women in this field. Um, Liz Shatter and Powell, who's
the VP of political Strategies with Bates, Niem and Ink,
which is a democratic direct mail and issue advocacy consulting firm,
(30:32):
said that you have to be aggressive to rise to
the position as an executive director of a committee or
a partner in a consulting firm, which, again you have
that socialization aspect. This is a behavior that women are
socialized from young ages, often against UM, even though many
people in the field embrace it. UM. And you also
(30:55):
have the issue of you know, the Doug stampers, the
men in power who might not be so keen on
giving them a leg up. Yeah, and then a huge
factor UM in the field, just like it is comes
up any time we talk about women who are alive
and having children. Is the whole family and parenting aspect
(31:18):
because if you whether you're a working mom or a
stay at home mom, uh, you're socially expected to be
there for your children and your family more than you're
expected to be at work. It's the whole mommy tracking
issue We've talked about before and Uh. Angela Faulkner, who's
a Republican direct mail consultant, told the Publication Campaigns and
(31:41):
Elections that she felt huge stigma as a mom and
full time consultant, especially when she was traveling overseas for clients.
She talked about how early in her career she actually
felt resentment from other women. Not dudes, not dudes calling
her out I'm calling her about mom, but resentment from
other women who were questioning her decision to work in
(32:04):
Venezuela's recall election rather than stay home with her children. Yeah,
she said, when people talk about family values, it's usually
based on a stable home environment, and many conservatives feel
that a stable home environment requires a mother that isn't
required to travel. UM and the the child care aspect
(32:25):
also reminds me of a Glamour magazine piece that we
read profiling UM women in the current election, And one
thing that Huma Aberdeen said was if Hillary is elected,
what she's going to do the very next day is
turn off her phone and spend the day with her son,
making him pasta and taking him out for ice cream,
(32:47):
which I was like, can I come over a UM,
But it kind of drives home, like I was reminded
reading that, like, oh, yeah, you probably do not get
to see your kid all that often because it is
a twenty four seven job. Yeah, it does make me
think of how how could Doug be a father, I
mean a side stampers of cards, Doug stamper on house
(33:08):
of cards, Like how could he be let alone? All
of the you know, personality court, sociopathy. Yeah, well that too, um.
But you know, it's it's hard across the board to
make time for family or social life or anything when
you are working in a political campaign. That goes without saying,
but it turns out that those grueling schedules can make
(33:30):
certain jobs more difficult than others. For instance, media consultants
typically end up with the hardest schedules of any operatives
because you know, I mean it makes sense. You've got
to respond rapidly if something happens. If Donald Trump says
yet another thing about women are Muslims, You've got to
have your phone on to be able to respond, and
plus you've got nearly constant travel. And so that, according
(33:52):
to a lot of female operatives interviewed, is one of
the reasons that they're likely fewer women in media than
in places like polling, fun raising or direct mail. So
yet again, for many women in this industry, there is
that double standard forced choice of motherhood versus career, and
(34:12):
how are you going to make the two work together.
And obviously there are plenty of women who are doing
just that, But the issue is that men typically do
not face the same kind of decision making, right, And
I mean, it turns out, when we hinted at this earlier,
that party affiliation is definitely a factor. According to a
(34:34):
study in the Journal of Political Marketing from eleven, they
wrote that women consultants tend to work for democratic firms
consulting firms more often than Republican led ones, and that
women led firms were more likely to be hired by
democratic rather than Republican candidates. And so basically this study
echoed prior studies that found that not only are more
(34:57):
women consultants Democrats, but Democratic consulting firms are more likely
to have women named as partners, and so as a result,
Democratic candidates are more likely to hire consulting firms with
women partners. It's like gender politics math literal gender politics. Well, yeah, exactly, Well,
(35:17):
and I wonder if that kind of partisanship in this
issue goes to what Angela Faulkner, who was that Republican
direct mail consultant, talked about in terms of UH Conservatives
having a very distinct perception of family values. That's often
(35:38):
a top conservative platform, and family values often when it
comes to when you look through the Republican lens um
often involves a woman at least closer to home. But
I mean it's not like women aren't out there doing
it for themselves. They are. There are more women these
days leading campaigns, leading superpath X, and heading up consulting firms.
(36:03):
One thing I didn't expect, I guess I should have
expected it is that it's actually really hard to find numbers.
You know, Kristen and I love citing stats. It's like
our favorite thing. We love to give you percentages, but
it's hard to find clear cut percentages and stats when
you're dealing with so many private firms and behind the scenes,
uh makeups and breakdowns of demographics, which again I mean
(36:25):
like ridiculous that that is the case in something that
lives and breathes by data. But of course, I mean
it's data and also image, so there's only select data
that you would probably want visible to the public. Um.
But you do have more women who are starting their
own consulting firms, and it's not just democratic women. You
(36:49):
have Katie Packer, Gauge, Ashley O'Connor and Christine Matthews who
got together and founded the Republican focused firm Burning Glass
US Consulting UM, because the Democratic narrative about the GOP
has been the whole war on women. So these three
(37:10):
consultants got together and we're like, you know, this whole
tone deafness issue that a number of Republican candidates have
had when it comes to women is something that we
could really focus on. And the whole Burning Glass aspect
of their name comes from the idea that they're going
to be so laser focus, like it's like a sunbeam
(37:31):
that could burn through the glass. I think I got
that right, basically, Yeah, exactly. But according to Sarah Brewer,
who's the former associate director of the Women in Politics
Institute an American university, UH found through her research that
female political consultants often work twice as long in the
field before starting their own firms than men do. And
(37:55):
the speculation around that, I mean, there's a couple of
reasons that could be one. And you need obviously kind
of a fat rolodex of clients and connections to start
your own thing, and if you are not in a
client contact heavy position, it's harder to make those direct connections. Uh.
There's also the thing that we've seen so often when
(38:17):
we talk about women or really any minority group, uh,
in a professional capacity, that there's often this need to
feel that you have to work harder to prove yourself.
And that makes it sound like you just internalized that
and feel like you have to do that. But often
people around you, I guess in this case it would
be the white guys and working in the campaign expect
(38:38):
you to work harder. Well. And I mean the very
fact that Burning Glass Consulting received a New York Times
profile an interview by Amanda Hess insulate all of this
media coverage because it was three Republican women, you know,
forming this consulting firm, I think speaks to how you
(39:00):
of this. This is kind of a rarity. Oh yeah,
I mean, and especially when it comes to Republican consulting,
right exactly. Um, But INLVE, women ran more than half
of the thirteen most competitive Democratic Senate campaigns, and that
year women were also in charge of two key campaign committees,
the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
(39:24):
But uh, those are both back to being headed by dudes,
So it's not like a permanent change. Um. And again
that increase in women operatives has been stronger on the
Democratic side, and in twelve on the Republican side, there
was just one female manager working on those top thirteen
most competitive Senate races. So as we are seeing slowly
(39:48):
but surely the numbers of women in political campaigning increasing,
the question is why is this happening? Um? So it
could have to do with an influx of money into
and the professionalization of campaigns, which creates more opportunities for consultants. Um.
I mean, the way that political campaigns are funded have
(40:12):
has been a major issue on the Democratic side of
the presidential race this year. Um. And you also have
a deeper bench of female operatives who have gradually risen
to the top, not to mention an increasing focus and
just general acknowledgement that female voters win elections. I mean,
(40:37):
women essentially are the people who decide who at least
gets to the White House. Yeah. And another big aspect
of this is the proliferation, like dandelions on your front yard,
of super PACs. And those super PACs offer men or
women more job flexibility and and schedule fle stability. Than
(41:00):
working directly for candidates. And that's so that's attractive to
anyone male or female who has a family or you know,
I don't know, like seventeen cats, like whatever, you know,
or like a bocci ball league on the weekends, like
whatever you want to do to make your life more rewarding,
you would have a little bit more time for it.
And Alexandria lap who's the executive director of the House
(41:24):
Majority Pack, says, yeah, I'm not getting a call at
eleven pm from the D Triple C chair of Congressman
so and so you answer to your donors, but it's
different than answering to a politician. And super Packs, by
the way, in case you are not familiar, it's their
job to raise and spend a ton of money, but
(41:44):
they can't donate money directly to candidates. So there is
that layer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, there is that layer
of separations. So, yeah, you're not answering directly to like
an angry candidate or an angry campaign manager who wants
to talk to you in the middle of the night.
Oh gosh, what if Doug Stamper called you in the
middle of the night, chilling. I don't think i'd answer
(42:04):
I don't have the the exact numbers in front of me,
But in terms of women of color and political activism,
there's also been an exponential um influx of packs forming
specifically to um engage those groups. I mean, for instance,
you have Rosario Dawson's co founded Voto Latino UM and
(42:29):
all sorts of groups like that that have risen in
just I mean the past five ten years. Yeah, because
politically you kind of have to fight fire with fire,
and by fire I mean cash. Money's lots and lots
of cash moneys, like a Scrooge McDuck pool of money
to buy ads that's not directly contributing to a politician.
(42:51):
But politics, I know, I know, I just I hate it.
I was thinking today actually, when we were preparing to
come into the studio, Like I looked out the window
wistfully and I just thought, God, I would kill for
candidates who were just humans, you know what I mean.
Like you can like and respect a candidate all you
(43:13):
want all day long, and like get caught up in
the idealism and believe what he or she says and
be behind them, But God, I would feel so much
better if candidates were just like, yeah, you know this
thing over here sucks like well, I mean, I think
some of that is due to the fact that we
are a two party system, so you have, you know,
(43:37):
like two people who are going for like such a
diverse yeah, massive group of people. Yeah. I was just
so when Baynard called Chris Lucifer in the flesh, I
was just like, that is I'm not even a Republican.
Was that the realist moment for you? So far? That
was a campaign that one of the realist moments? And
(43:57):
I was like, God, that's refreshing. Well. And one thing
we you know, haven't even gotten into and and don't
have time to is the rise of the kind of
superstar political manager like a Karl Rove. I mean, I
think that he's probably the most intense example of that.
I mean that that man has really, in a lot
(44:20):
of ways, um changed American culture. I mean, he's responsible,
I think, for a vast majority of the conservative political
climate right now. Well. Yeah, and even with Karl Rove,
though you had Karen Hughes, I think only temporarily. I
don't think she was with George Bush for the long haul.
She had worked with him back in Texas UM and
(44:41):
worked with him on one, if not both, of his
election presidential election campaigns. Um, so you did have a
woman sort of like in the wings behind row. But
for all of his puppet mastering, Karl Rove gets both
the credit and the blame for all of the stuff
that happened in George Bush's presidency. Well, and he's positioned
(45:03):
himself in that way too, because I mean, I don't
know that I've ever seen Karen Hughes on television before,
but when you have Karl Robe all the time. Yeah,
And that's that's one thing we were reading about two
is like how in this modern era you do have
people like Mary Magdalene and James Carville, Karl Rove, Donna Brazil,
(45:24):
people who are political consultants who even like in the
boom times of the seventies and eighties when they first emerged,
still we're behind the scenes. And slowly but surely or
pretty quickly, I guess, they became the talking heads on
your cable news networks, you know, your columnists in newspapers,
(45:45):
and they have become celebrities and pseudo politicians in their
own right. Well. Yeah, speaking of House of Cards, Donna
Brazil has made two cameos on the show. I mean
James Carville was in old school. I don't know, like
that is a fact in my brain that um, I
wish it could be replaced with something more useful. UM.
But I mean James Craffel has made so many cameos
(46:07):
and all sorts of stuff. Um. And but that whole
thing too, I would attribute going back to old j
school days, journalism school where Caroline and I first met. Um.
It's all about the twenty four hour news cycle too,
so of course they're pulling from the stable of people
who are really good about talking politics and also spinning
(46:27):
and kind of you know, uh, shooting from the hip
with Wolf Blitzer, Yeah who. I once flew in a
plane with Um and he was carrying a garment bag
onto the plane and it was monogrammed with his wolf initials,
and I was hoping it would just be like an
(46:48):
airbrushed picture of a wolf. God. I wish, I wish, um,
But I think the most surprising thing was that his
beard was almost translucent. Strange. I thought you were going
to say it was like a fake sand of b
that was tied on behind his ears. Also, I wish,
but I want your your wolf Blitzer. Um. I was
on a plane with Kathleen Sebelius, one time former head
(47:08):
of Health and Human Services. We made eye contact when
there was a really annoying woman talking on her cell phone.
Kathleen I waved to her, um, anyway, if you're listening,
shout out, um So anyway, it's kind of obvious and
goes without saying. And in Kristen you already touched on
this earlier in the podcast that if you don't represent
(47:30):
the population in your campaign, in your strategy, like, it's
obviously going to ding you because you're not going to
be able to fully get the picture of your electorate.
And dip Marcus, can you imagine? Um ditmar writing about
this says you have to be able to understand how
to speak to all voters, including hello, over of the population,
(47:54):
which is women voters, and she points out as if
she needs to that listen, you guys. There is value
in women's experiences and women's voices, and that value can
be applied to shaping policy. Okay, of course I agree
with all of that, of course, but we have a
(48:15):
massive glaring exception to the idea that you will get
dinged at the polls. If you don't know how to
speak to all voters, and that would be the runaway
success of one Donald J. Trump, formerly drump But he
yet well, yeah, but he's not doing well in the
(48:37):
polls with women, right, but he's still the as of
the time that we are recording this podcast. Who knows
what will have changed when this episode publishes. He's the
presumptive Republican nominee and it doesn't matter. He doesn't even
he doesn't need women. I mean, granted in the general election,
I would be surprised if it didn't come back to
(48:58):
haunt him. Um. But it it's I mean, the the
American electorate also is so um. I don't I don't
know how a good word to describe it. It's so
polarized at this point, it's so extremely polarized that unfortunately,
(49:18):
you can make excluding certain people's rights and liberties, including
not only um women, but also Muslims in the case
of the Trump campaigns, and really anyone who's not wearing
a Make America Grade Again hat and not wearing it ironically. Um,
(49:41):
but that you can, you can do that and unfortunately succeed. Yeah,
but like you said, I mean, he's a runaway success
with a very specific demographic. He would not, I don't
think do very well in the general against Hilary or Bernie.
(50:01):
We'll see fingers hell. I mean at this point though, UM,
And I'm really curious to hear from our listeners outside
of the US about all of this too, because I'm
sure it just looks like nonsense happening. It is it is.
I mean, I don't, I don't. I can't even make
any predictions at this point. No. I asked my father
(50:23):
who he was voting for, and uh, he just kind
of looks at me, because he and I do not
talk politics, and he just looked at me and he said,
I'll be voting for Kasik after the contested uh nomination.
So but I mean, that's another interesting example of you
can not have women's best interest at heart. But if
(50:43):
you keep quiet about how you feel about women as
opposed to Donald Trump, well maybe Beth Harden, his campaign manager,
has had something to do with that. Who knows exactly. UM,
But of course it's not these aren't do desirable outcomes,
you know, we would like to see UM people elected
(51:04):
who do UM value women, UM, not just as like humans,
is like beautiful objects, like Donald Trump has but as um,
you know, people who should be kept in mind when
making and passing policy. And that is one reason why
we need to give a massive shout out to Emily's List,
(51:28):
which is a political action committee for pro choice Democratic
female candidates. Um. If you don't know who they are,
go look them up. Um they're terrific. Um. And just McIntosh,
who works with them, agrees that. I mean, it's simply
a practicality to have women working in your campaign. She says,
(51:51):
by having women and leadership roles, you're going to have
more needed perspectives about messaging, reaching voters, all of that.
When she was speaking to Vocative, Well, what I thought
was so interesting and telling. Remember that two thousand three
consultant study that I mentioned a little while ago. Yes, yes, rewind.
(52:13):
If you don't on your tape deck, your podcast tape deck, rewind.
This comes out on cassettes, right Yeah, well how yeah,
people order them on those. Um you remember those like
cassette services like Columbia, like Titus Andromeda Schmidt subscribed to exactly. Um.
So you know they talked to a bunch of consultants,
male and female, and seventy of the women they talked to,
(52:36):
and just thirty percent of the men believed that women
brought a unique perspective to the campaign and that this
perspective could be used strategically to win elections. So interesting,
because then, if you don't believe that women have a
unique perspective, and you are accustomed to hiring and promoting
people who are like you, why why would you make
(53:01):
a special effort to bring women in Yet again, I
feel like this is just a microcosm of issues that
we see across industries right well, which is why so
many women interviewed in the articles that we read for
this episode cited the importance of mentors who can help
guide you through those gender expectations, through those mind field,
those political mind fields, and the importance of women helping
(53:21):
and hiring other women. It's not uncommon, according to a
lot of the women we read uh for women in
campaigns and consulting firms to band together, at least within
their own parties and commit to helping bring up promising
young women that live Chatter and Powell, who we cited earlier,
encourages female candidates and female oriented packs to work only
(53:43):
with female consultants. And it's worth noting that women candidates do,
in fact, tend to hire more women to work on
their campaigns than male candidates do, and she says if
we don't help our own, we will never be successful
at tearing down walls. Um She said that in one
campaign that she was working on, a male staff member,
a Democratic male staff member, told her that he she
(54:06):
couldn't run one of his top Senate campaign races because quote,
I was female and none of his candidates would take
orders from a woman. That's that's my eloquent response to that. Yeah,
and so um Pal also writes that women can at
least be there for each other to help encourage one
(54:28):
another to stick it out. She says women are way
more likely than men in this field of work to basically,
I mean, for lack of a better word, and I'm
just gonna use the buzzword, but lean out when they
decide that they want a quote unquote real job that
will afford them some free time to have a family
or whatever. Um and So she envisions pal and visions
(54:49):
this landscape where you have training seminars that are exclusively
for female operatives, given exclusively by female consultants that would
then after the fact offer a consistent stream of mentoring
support to help women stick it out, or really just
to help women plan their career trajectories in whatever political
direction they want to go. Yeah, I mean it's an
(55:11):
exhausting job. I can only imagine UM getting into this field. So, um,
I'm curious to hear if there are any listeners who
are currently campaigning for UM for candidates right now, or
who have done so in the past, who can give
us more feet on the street insights into this. And
(55:32):
before we get into listener mail, I want to quickly
correct myself. Um, just a minute ago, when we were
mentioning Kimmy Schmidt, I refer to Titus Andromedas. His name
is Titus Andromedon. Tins Andromedas is actually a band that
I used to listen to all the time. So listeners,
(55:53):
don't don't worry. Don't worry. I know, I know. Um. So,
I just wanted to make that a very important point clear. Sorry,
I was our I was just envisioning. I didn't even
hear you finish that because I was just envisioning tied
us breaking that tape and having so um. Yeah, I
just I just assumed you said it correctly. Well, listeners,
(56:14):
now we want to hear from you. Mom Stuff at
how Stuff Works dot Com is our email address. You
can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages
on Facebook. And if by chance you know Donna Brasilt
pullease send her our best. And we've got a couple
of messages this year with you right now. Well, I
(56:36):
have a letter here from Sarah in response to our
episode on the comfort women of World War Two. She says,
I was surprised to discover a bit of my own
family history. My grandfather is a renowned cardiologist now, but
got his start as a brigade surgeon in the Army
during World War Two in the Pacific Theater. For most
of my life he never ever talked about the war. However,
(56:58):
as I've gotten older I'm thirty two and have since
enlisted in the Air Force, he felt comfortable enough telling
me bits and pieces about his service. Shortly after the
war ended, my grandfather was in Japan trying to prevent
epidemics from breaking out among the troops. One of his
duties while there was apparently delousing the women high ranking
military officers slept with. I never realized quite what that
(57:21):
meant until right now. That's such a terrible position to
be in. I guess I now know why he never
wanted to talk to me about that job in particular.
Thanks for the clarity, and thanks for everything you ladies do.
I listen to your podcast all the time. Well thanks,
Sarah So. I gotta let her here from Lena offering
some clarifications and corrections about that episode. Um so So,
(57:45):
she says, we, referring to Koreans, aren't just upset about
the comfort women issue. Japan to date has never actually apologized,
and they continue to refuse to do so. The last
so called apology was more of a we're sorry you
went through that. In recent years, Japan tried to eliminate
a monument to comfort women from various countries, including Korea,
(58:07):
the Philippines, China, and other countries. And she goes on
to say, I get the things happened and need to
be discussed, but depicting Korean culture as one where men
would prostitute their own daughters honestly makes it sound like
you're trying to reduce the seriousness of what Japan did
in numerous countries. As you mentioned, one of the worst
things these women face post war was a social shame
(58:29):
of their experience and the ways in which they were
severely abused. Being raped wasn't always seen as a sign
that you were a victim and will take care of you.
They were tainted, so everything they went through shouldn't be minimized.
China in particular shouldn't be forgotten. Their government and people
have been extremely active in pushing for apologies and some
sign that they might not repeat the same acts if
(58:50):
given the chance. Korea's government has let us down, and
China's government has continued to pursue numerous issues. I'm not
trying to be harsh, and I love all of your
podcast us. I found time and again that your research
on numerous Asian issues has been extremely well done. This
just happens to be a particularly sore spot that isn't
just a problem for former quote unquote comfort women. A
(59:11):
term that really needs to die anyway. It was created
by Japan specifically to try to tone down the horrific
nature of what was done to them. So thank you
for writing in Lena, and thanks to everybody who's written
into us. Mom Stabbitt, how suffwork dot Com is where
you can send your letters and thrillingks all of our
social media as well as all of our blogs, videos,
(59:32):
and podcasts with our sources so you can learn more
about women and political campaigns. Head on over to stuff
Mom Never Told You dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot
com
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