Women, Ambition, and Running for Office

A & B are joined by author Jo Piazza to talk about her new book and the challenges faced by women running for office. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is Annie and this is Bridget and you're listening
to Steph. Mom. Never told you today, we're going to
be joined with another guest. UM. A couple of months ago,
we talked to journalists and author Joe Piazza about her

(00:27):
podcast Committed, which is awesome if you haven't checked it out, UM,
and that is all about how to stay married. But
recently Joe had a book come out called Charlotte Walsh
Likes to Win, and she was very kind to send
to some copies which I gobbled through at at the Beach.
It was nice actually got to read at the Beach
for once. And the book is all about a woman

(00:50):
named Charlotte Wash surprise there, who wants to run for
office in her home district in Pennsylvania after living and
working in Silicon Valley. And as the title suggests, Charlotte
Walsh likes to win. She is unabashedly ambitious and that's
kind of what the book examines. So, as we touched

(01:10):
on in our episode called Year of the Woman, a
lot of women are running for office this year, and
not only that, they are winning. According to The New
Yorker in April four hundred and seventy two, women had
entered the race for House, which is a lot of women.
Fifty seven women filed or are likely to file candidacies
for the Senate, and with historic primary wins from folks

(01:31):
like Stacy Abrams and Georgia alex Ocasio Cortez. In New York,
Dana Carome winning the election for Virginia's House of Delegates
as the first openly trans woman to do so. Women
are really kicking ass when it comes to running for office.
But unfortunately, as y'all might suspect, running for office as
a woman comes with its own unwritten set of rules. Yeah,

(01:51):
sometimes literally. Earlier this year, after Tammy Duckworth became the
first sitting US Senator to give birth, she and Senator
Amy klubash Or had to negotiate four months to change
Senate rules to allow Senator Duckworth to bring her under
two weeks old nursing daughter with her for a confirmation vote.
They were obviously engaging in this negotiation before Tammy Duckworthy birth,

(02:16):
but and in there were even rumors of a compromise
that will allow her to vote from a closet. From
a closet, Wow, Yeah, the implication and unfortunately the reality
there is that the rules were made for men and
that women are outliers, and probably we should have started

(02:37):
with this. This is a fiction book Charlotte Walsh likes
to win, but it it reflects so much of our reality,
and it is extremely timely. A lot of it examines
the the media coverage, the differences in media coverage a
male versus a female candidate faces. And I remember when
Hillary Clinton was running and all the talk of her

(02:59):
shrill voy and she's not authentic, and she's cold. And
I would hear friends say to me, I just don't
like her, and I'd ask why, and they'd say something
along the lines of she just seems fake. I don't
believe her. And I try to explain, well, she's probably
been coached to a friend as little men as possible,
and and people would shrug at me and say, well,

(03:21):
I don't like her. Um, she wants it too badly. Essentially,
she's not a cool girl. Yeah, even even politicians can't
get away from this cool girl trap. I want to
be clear. I like Hillary Clinton. I campaign for her,
I voted for her. Obviously, I'm not saying there are
not legitimate reasons to not want to vote for her,
but saying that she just doesn't seem cool or she

(03:43):
wants it too much. That seems like a like a
coded sexist implication that because she's driven, because she's ambitious,
that comes off as untrustworthy to you. But if a
man had the same behavior, you would you wouldn't necessarily
say that, And the data agrees with me. Women like
Hillary Clinton are saddled with another unfair hurdle, and that
is the need to be likable. The nonpartisan and Barbara

(04:05):
Lee Family Foundation had a study called The Keys to
Elected Office, The Essential Guide for Women Now. The data
in this report was gathered from the campaigns of every
woman who has run for governor in the past fifteen years.
The report pulled voters along the candidates and campaign staff,
and they found that likability and qualifications are more closely
linked for female candidates than with male candidates, or, as

(04:26):
a study puts it, for women candidates not making a mistake,
it's part of being likable. For male candidates not making
a mistake, it's part of being organized and getting results.
And women are even deemed for really simple things like
the choice to wear clothes. One study found that when
articles mentioned a woman's shoes or clothing, voters are less
likely to want to vote for them if they're women.

(04:48):
Name It, Change It. A joint project of the Women's
Media Center and She Should Run released a study conducted
by the Salinda Lake of Lake Research Partners and how
dropped in mentions of a woman's clothing in appearance affect voters.
They probable voters read gender neutral descriptions of a hypothetical
male and female candidate and then asked them how likely
they would be to vote for one over the other.
At the beginning, they liked each candidate about equally. Then

(05:11):
four separate groups of study participants each heard a slightly
different version of a news story about hypothetical candidates. One
group's new story didn't mention the female candidates clothing or
appearance at all, and of that group have said they
would vote for the male candidate half for the female candidate.
But the three groups of study participants who heard a
new story that mentioned the woman's appearance suddenly changed their

(05:32):
minds and started ranking the female candidate. It's less experienced,
less confident, less effective, and less qualified than her male opponent.
So basically, if an article mentions, oh, she wore x
y Z kind of shoes or x y Z kind
of haircut, or x y Z kind of jacket or
x y Z kind of purse. As articles about women
politicians often do automatically, voters experienced them as less qualified,

(05:57):
less constant, and all of that, and it's really it's
mess up. We have to wear clothes, Yeah, can you
imagine if we didn't wear clothes would be a different
news story. I know, I know women across all industries
are kind of up against that's very very unfair double
standard where we can't win. You know, you can't be
yourself otherwise you look unhinged or crazy or this or that.

(06:20):
You can't be too coached and too you know, sanitize
otherwise you want it too bad, you don't seem trustworthy.
That there's really no way to win, especially for women
who are running for office. And Joe's book, which we're
going to be talking about in a little bit, looks
all at all aspects of that, at female ambition, at

(06:40):
what a woman running for office is up against, that
double standard, that tight rope. You're damned if you do,
damned if you don't. We're gonna pause for a quick break,
but when we come back. We're going to be joined
by Joe Piazza. We're gonna talk all about this and

(07:05):
we're back. Thank you sponsor, and we're joined by our
friend Joe. Hello, Joe. Hey, ladies, thank you so much
for joining us again, and congratulations on the book. Thanks
for having me again, um, and thank you for that.
It's it's been really amazing. I like literally just got
home for the first time in a month. We were

(07:27):
on a book tour, driving through the middle of the
country for the past four weeks. What was that like? Um,
it was amazing actually, and I'm so glad that we
did it because so the book is about a woman
running for office, kind of timely right now, right a
little bit. And we went to we we started in Asheville,

(07:49):
and we went to Asheville, Nashville, Louisville, the suburbs of Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota,
and we got the hell out of our bubbles, which
was incredible. I mean, I live in San Francisco, I
work in New York most of the time in l
A And those are some real bubbles. And so we
talked to women who were completely different from us, um,

(08:13):
and who were hungry for this story, who were hungry
for a story about a woman running for office, about
an ambitious an ambitious woman. Um, because books, movies, and
TV just kind of fail women a lot of the time.
You know, we don't we don't show really powerful strong
women nearly enough. So no matter what side of the aisle,
a lot of the women in the audience were on,

(08:35):
they were psyched for such a strong female character and
that was just really cool. Why do you think that is?
Why do you think the media does such a bad
job when it comes to displaying ambitious women in that way,
Because it's been run by men ever, I mean since
the very beginning, I mean genuinely, the Hollywood studio system
has was the brain child of men, except for Mary Pickford,

(08:57):
who did started with her who started the original studio
with her husband, but she was pretty much cast aside.
And we've had men making the decisions about what they
think women want to be seeing. And I genuinely think
pop culture, so books, TV and movies, they've just they've
all failed us by failing to create strong women because

(09:18):
they say, one men definitely won't see it, and two
women women don't want to watch it because their men
won't watch it with them. It's changing now, it's starting
to change. Um. But I've been in l A. I
was in l A all last week doing negotiations to
turn Charlotte Walsh into a TV show, and I'm working
with people who get it and who love it. But

(09:39):
it's definitely not the norm. Yeah. I remember the last
time we spoke with you, you were unhappy with this,
this lacker of representation of ambitious women in the media,
and you kind of blamed it for the how it
turned out the election totally. I mean, I absolutely think
that's that that's why the election turned out way that

(10:00):
it did. I also blamed the media, and I think
I'm allowed to say that, you know, because I am
the media, and I was the media for twenty For
twenty years, um, I was I covered for presidential races.
I covered a slew of local and state races in
New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. And I think that
we know, we know that the media treats women completely

(10:22):
differently than it treats men. It criticizes women for what
they wear, how they walk, how who's taking care of
their children, or what kind of makeup they have on.
And they would never ever do that to a man.
So I blame I blame the media, and I blame
pop culture. I mean I mostly blame men. I pretty
much always mostly blame me. That's usually a safe bet.

(10:42):
Just blame then that's generally what I do as well. Um,
something that interests me. So you said that, you know,
the media is one of the reasons why the Clinton
was treated so badly. I completely agree on that same
flip side. You know, we we opened the episode talking
about all of these women running for office, this sort
of untested slew running and winning primaries. Do you think

(11:03):
that's a reaction to Donald Trump. I mean, it absolutely is.
And I say this all the time that if Donald
Trump gave us one good thing, I mean besides a
slew of memes, Um, I think that he empowered us
to to fight. Right If we had we been given
Hillary right after we've been given Barack, I think we

(11:25):
would have been like, oh, okay, the world has finally
changed and come to its rational senses. But now we've
had no choice but to fight. Women have had no
choice but to stand up and say, yes, I'm running,
Yes I want to fix this, Yes I want to
change this. And I mean that is a gift to
learn how to fight back. Um All. I interviewed hundreds
of women for for this book, women who'd run for office,

(11:47):
are running or running campaigns, um and a lot of
women running right now, and they all told me they're like, yes,
it's a reaction to Donald Trump, but it's also a
reaction that Donald Trump shows things are broken and they
want to fix it. Because when women run for office,
they run because they want to fix it, and when
men run a lot of times it's because of ego.
What you just said about women running to fix and

(12:09):
men running because they want the glitz and glory, I
gotta say, you know, I no longer than the New
York City, but I did watch the debate last night
between Cynthia Nixon and Andrew Cuomo, and what you just
said is like ding ding ding ding ding. Yes, you know,
the person who seemed like they were just as an
as a New Yorker fed up with all of these
issues and thinking we can do better, I want to

(12:30):
fix it. I have to say. I mean that person
was Cynthia Nixon, and the person who seemed like I
am fulfilling my political destiny by winning this race that
will put me on a trajectory to be president someday
and fulfill my family like legacy and dynasty. That person
was Clomo. I mean I so I watched scenes from

(12:51):
that debate over and over again. I mean, this, this
is what I did last night with a tub of
ice cream, just me Wahington, Washington Day Nixon. Um, and
she was incredible. She was so impressive. Cuomo was up
there like stock political character, look at me, and since
they was like, Okay, this is how we're going to
fix the subway. Okay, this is how we're going to
fix education. I mean literally, it was like fix it,

(13:11):
fix it, fix it. And what amazes me still is
looking at coverage of her, She's still not taken seriously
as a candidate. I mean she's there's constantly references to
sex in the city, often in the headline of major newspapers. Um,
I get it. She was an actress. She hasn't. She

(13:32):
hasn't not been an actress on a television show for
quite some time. She's been an activist for quite some time. Um,
she lives what she preaches. And had it been a
man who was running, I mean, and we've seen men run.
We saw Al Franken run we saw Arnold Schwarzenegger run,
they would not have been treated so lightly in every

(13:52):
single story about them as Cynthia has been treated. And
I think, especially with her particular case, Dixon had a
legacy of risen around public education, predating her work on
sex and the city. Like she I like, I didn't
know this, and I'm surprised that I that I should
didn't know this. But she had been really, really active
in New York City's public education site for a long time.

(14:13):
And so this idea that she has no political background,
no advocacy experience, which is not true. No, it's just
I mean, it's absolutely not true. It's a complete myth. Um.
Cynthia really killed it last night. I mean, I said
to my husband before we went to bed, and like, I,
I actually think she might be able to win. Now.
I did not know going into this. I mean, because
Cuomo is such a legacy, right, um, and even people

(14:35):
that know nothing about New York politics, of course, Andrew Cuomo,
I mean, he's a politician. He sounds like a politician. Um.
But I genuinely believe I feel good about her race now,
and I feel good about so many other women's races now.
And like you said, we're seeing a record number of
women running right now. I Christina Reynolds, the VP of
comms for Emily's List, was on two of my event

(14:57):
panels with me UM in York and in DC, and
she just said, they've never ever seen anything like this.
They've never seen they never had this many women one
to ask about running and to ask about helping women
to run, and it's it's incredible. Yeah, it really is, Um.
And I wanted to ask, even though I feel like

(15:19):
the answer might be might be easily guessable, motivated you
to to write this book? Well? I thought about writing
the book before November. I mean mostly because I was
watching how the media wasn't just covering the women candidate,
but all women candidates, and I was like, you know,
we fiction really should reflect the reality we're living in

(15:41):
right now. But then absolutely everything changed. Um. The book
was originally going to be much more of a satire,
and then we started living in a satire, so that
wasn't possible anymore. And so and a lot of people
ask me, they're like, your journalist, why didn't you make
it nonfiction? You interviewed all these people, And I think
that fix just has a way of changing people's hearts

(16:02):
and minds in a way nonfiction doesn't, because you're just
kind of slipping it in. It's a little softer then
banging them over the head with facts and figures. And
people are reading the book that wouldn't pick up a
nonfiction book, that wouldn't pick up like hardcore political book
at all. And you know, I kind of a bitch

(16:23):
about it all the time. The fact that this book
came out in the summer, um like a lot of
books by women authors do um. It was categorized as
a beach read by a lot of people. Had the
book been written by a man, it would have come
out in the fall and been an important fall book,
um and been categorized as very serious literature about the
times we live in. But that's fine, and I'm fine

(16:44):
with it because it means that women that wanted to
pick up a quote unquote beach read picked it up
and read it. And I get comments all the time
from people saying, oh my god, I never thought about
these things. Oh my god, I just picked the woman
running in my district and I'm volunteering now, but I
never would have done that before. Um. And so that's
the coolest part about this book. And that's why I
wrote it. I was like, let's let's start a conversation,

(17:05):
a real conversation. And we're seeing it. I mean, we
are seeing New York Times articles about the harassment that
women face on the campaign trail, the terrible things that
people say to women. Um, we're seeing women candidates speak
up when people when newspapers use a picture of them
that isn't that's not just flattering, but that's insulting. And

(17:26):
then put a picture of male candidates in their nice
business suits with their next Brianna Wou that was that
story was was really something to me. Okay, So for
folks who don't know what we're talking about, um, it's
Brianna Wou sort of came to prominence throughout gamer Gate,
Like she was a big, outspoken critic of gamer Gate

(17:47):
and with someone who raised alarm bells about what had
been happening to her women like her in the gaming industry,
and it made her a huge target, as you might imagine.
And so now she's running for she wanting for Congress. Yeah,
she's running for the House. And you know she had
just done this a photo shoot with the Boston Globe
wherein she you know, was looked very you know, it

(18:08):
looks like someone running for office, you know, brown hair,
wearing a professional dress, all of that. And she's someone
who in other times in her life has worn you know,
dyed hair like anime colored hair, and funky clothes like
many of us. And the Boston Globe chose her two
male kid her two male opponents normal pictures of them
in suits, head shots, and it seemingly took a picture

(18:31):
that was like a screenshot on her doing like a
live stream that was probably from years ago, where she
had anime colored hair, was wearing a T shirt. And
she spoke out, she said, listen, one, you guys just
in a photo shoot with me, so I know you
have access to photos, right, look really professional too. I
have gone out of my way to present myself for

(18:52):
the last two years in the most serious way. I
dyed my hair brown. I'm wearing the same dress even
when it's really hot, Adam wearing the same uncomfortable dres
us and this is still how you portrayed me. I mean,
I think, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum,
that anyone can look at that and say that is
unfair treatment. And it's because she's a woman, and it's
because she's a woman. And I don't think that she

(19:13):
necessarily would have spoken out or had the platform to
speak out in any other election cycle, because we're finally
at this point where we're saying we've had enough and
and we're fed up. Um. You know, I have a
scene in Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win where the opposing
candidate's wife, the opposing candidate is very conservative, and the
press finds out that his wife had had had an abortion,

(19:34):
and you're imagining the photo editor pulling pictures of being like,
let's find let's find a picture of a woman who
looks like she might have had an abortion, and they
pull pictures of her from fifteen years ago when she
was in her twenties and she dressed differently and you know,
maybe a little bit sexily, and those are the pictures
they ran, And those are serious decisions, like visuals matter,

(19:55):
photographs matter, and you have to think about the people
that are choosing choosing those photograph. Like I was, I
just kept tweeting Brianna Wou like kind of like a
weird stalker yesterday, being like you go girl, yes anything
you want. I'm sending you a copy of my book.
I'm gonna come out and stump for you, like, yes,
you're killing it. And she I think she thinks I'm

(20:15):
I'm a little I'm a little bit stalker in creasy.
It's probably a good kind of stocking compared to what
she's gotten before. I'm I'm certain. So it's funny that
it's funny that you say this. One of these scenes
in the book finds Walsh kind of getting into like
a minor scandal for wearing flats instead of heels heel gate,
and you know, it sounds really far fetched, you know,

(20:37):
the idea that would happen, but we know that that's
actually not true. Like women candidates are often dinged for
what they what they wear, how they how they dress.
I saw this for the interesting quote from cultural critic
Amanda Hess and she says that pointing out a woman's
heels in articles, it's kind of a shorthand for what
kind of woman that you're trying to kind of depictures.
She writes, high heeled name droughts like these are a

(20:59):
scourge on realistic profiles of powerful women. For some journalist
supporting that a woman wears high heel, high healed shoes,
or various colors and origins apparently passes for a weighty
detail that gives some inside into the subject's character. Often
that perceived inside is negative. Heels are mentioned to pain
a woman as spending, superficial, sepia, or a deviation from
the male standard. So I'm curious, like, is this something

(21:21):
that you found where articles will mention such and such
female candidate. Oh, she's wearing heels. You are lubatans and
have that sort of act as a kind of shorthand
for she's flighty, she's superficial, she's spendy, or something like that. Oh,
totally absolutely. I mean, first off, a woman in most

(21:42):
articles about a woman candidate, and another reason I want
to write this book was just so people would notice it. Right,
her outfit is mentioned in the first or second paragraph.
And we saw that a lot when London Breed was
elected here as Mary of San Francisco. You know, in
in no articles about a male politician, are you like, well,
he's daring that navy blue suit again and that red tie. No,

(22:03):
but the color of a woman's suit is always always
noted her, the size of her heel is always noted.
And what a lot of the women candidates told me
too is that they get this schizophrenic advice all the time.
So I did a podcast episode of Committed with Lauren Bear,
who just won her primary down in Florida. Um in
the House is eighteenth district. And people say, wear more dresses.

(22:27):
It makes you look prettier and softer, and people will
like you more. Wear more suits because they make you
look smarter. Your hair is too severe And by severe,
she's like, you mean it's curly, and they're like yes,
I mean these are things just would never happen to
a man. And their shorthand. I mean there's all kinds
of shorthand that we use around women candidates. The outfits

(22:48):
are just one piece of them we call and by we,
I mean the press women candidates things like hysterical and unhinged,
and that shorthand for she's a crazy woman, and what
do you think about? It's like the press is writing
about a woman the same way that every man ever
has talked about their ex girlfriend to their new girlfriend.
Oh that's such a good boy. She's crazy, she's crazy,

(23:13):
she's nuts and and that and those are the things
used to describe a woman. I remember when I was
at the New York Daily News, my editor pushed me
to write the story about Hillary Clinton wearing a scrunchy
and I can't find that story and I wish that
I could, And I remember thinking, why does it matter?
And I remember thinking I wanted to make my editor happy,
and I did it anyway, and I hate myself for

(23:34):
doing it, but why why? I remember? It turned into
scrunchy Gate. And so when I put this heel Gate
story into my book, and my editor was like, well,
isn't that a cliche? And I'm like, yes, and that's
why we have to write about it. Yes, it's a
cliche and it's absurd. Yeah. One of the things that
stuck out to me when I was reading this is

(23:56):
how our politics are so superficial. And there's one point
where Charlotte's campaign advisor Josh tells her a woman who
doesn't smile as an angry woman. You cannot be an
angry woman even for a second. No, not allowed. And
one of one of my favorite anecdotes from one of
the women I talked to, who was who had run

(24:18):
for governor in the last cycle, told me she got
t MJ from smiling so much that just forcing herself
to smile actually messed up her jaw. But male candidates
don't get that. Um. The other interesting thing I found was,
you know, you know, like mailer's those glossy things you
get in the mail. I like never actually check my

(24:39):
mail or like go through my mail, but it's still
a big thing on campaigns. Men are always told to
pose with their family male candidates, um, because they're like,
you know, everyone wants a family man, it makes you softer. Um.
But women are always told to pose alone in a
power pose, so like arms crossed or like knuckle under chin.
It's like you look smart, you look powerful. They're like,

(25:01):
don't make don't let your kids be on there. UM. Again,
I think that's changing. I think that's changing, um because
more women who are running are being really authentic. They're
being really open about having kids, which I think is
awesome because the reason that the government doesn't help out
mothers is because we haven't had a lot of mothers
in government for a long time. UM. I talked to

(25:23):
one candidate, a Virginia delegate, who told me that when
she found out she was pregnant on the campaign trail,
people actually said, great, when are you dropping out? I'm not,
and they're like, okay, great, can you hide it? Can
you hide this pregnancy while we're campaigning? And she's like, no,
I'm pregnant with twins. And she didn't hide it, and

(25:45):
she thinks it was a plus, and that race went
to a recount. She did the recount in her hospital
bed postpartum with twins, and then went out and walked
around with one twin strap to her front and one
twin strap to her back. And I'm like, yeah, so
women aren't strong at all. Now. Think what you're saying
is so true, and that you know, if we're able
to see competent, strong women kicking ass while being pregnant

(26:08):
while having a baby, we should we should be able
to see that like reflection, because it's it's the reality.
Like I was so happy to see Tammy Duckworth go
through that process and still hold public office. You know,
we we pretend that, you know, if you get pregnant
you have to sort of hide it, and it's just
it's just sort of we're acting like it's not a
normal part of life for a lot of us, and

(26:28):
it is. It's like we're acting like the reality is
not actually the reality, and it's the cycle that helps
no one exactly exactly. I mean, I turned in the
first draft of Charlotte Welsh. I might have told you
guys this while I was in labor, bouncing up and
down on a yoga ball um and I'm like, all right,
I just gotta get this done. My husband was sleeping.
I'm in labor finishing a draft of a novel, and

(26:50):
he's snoring. Women get done. But we never see that.
And this is this goes back to the pop culture thing.
We rarely see that on the screen. We see pregnant women,
you know, being treated very delicately, and then once they
have the baby and have the newborn, then they're typically
relegated to their houses. You know. We like, we just
don't see pregnant women and new mothers working and working

(27:12):
hard in the same way that we we don't see
female politicians doing that on the screen either. I love Veep.
She's an idiot on Veep, Like we see women politicians
as idiots or shrews, or wives that become politicians because
their husbands up somehow scandal Yeah, I mean, I love
the two, but I sort of what you just said

(27:32):
that I didn't realize. Yeah, she's sort of presented as bumbling,
like she can't get anything right, even when even when
things go right for her, they still go wrong, Like
she just is kind of hapless. Yeah, and it's hilarious.
But the fact is Veep is the really one of
the only shows that we have that show a woman
in political power and she's hapless, she's bumbling and that

(27:55):
and people people take that to heart too. I mean
the I'm constantly lon away by the majority of Americans
who take what they see on screens as what is reality. Yeah,
I guess that's what That's why I love the show
parts and breath because you know, Leslie No doesn't always
get it right, but she wants that she wants to

(28:15):
do the best thing. She wants to do the right thing.
Like I don't know, I guess I just wish that
we like men. I wish that we got to have
a variety of women who are running for office, the
ones who are hapless and bumbling, the ones who are
scheming and power hungry and awful, the ones who are
altruistic and doing a great job. Men. When you look
at shows that feature men, who hold public power. You

(28:35):
get the you get the variety, you get all all stripes,
from your Frank Underwoods to your who was the president
on West Wing Um, oh gosh, Jeff Bartlett, thank you,
and we just we just don't have that as women.
It's a very sympacific bucket that we're able to test
sort of fall into exactly exactly. It was funny west

(28:56):
Wing um, like the official west Wing tv H Twitter
tweeter the other day they're like, I think we should
come up with a prequel about Jeff Barlett unning for governor.
And I'm like, oh my god, shut the up, Like
why don't we come up with a sequel where CJ
runs for Senate like that, Like, yes, come on, come on,
men um. Something else we don't see very often in

(29:17):
media that I really enjoyed seeing in your book is
um relationships between different generations of women. And in this
case it was older women who had run for office
and been elected, And so it was cool because you
get to see the relationship between the characters, but also
it was kind of a it's showcased how politics had changed,

(29:38):
how maybe things what had stayed the same in what
hadn't In this case, Um, can you talk a little
bit about about writing that. Oh yeah, women have been
told forever. And by forever, I mean since the beginning
of women taking office, and in the beginning of women
taking office, they were taking office because their husbands died. UM,

(30:00):
to run like a man, to rule like a man. Um.
Hillary Clinton was told that as recently as this recent
election by her male campaign managers. UM. And I wanted
to be able to show that through these multi generations
of women. So we have a character Roz who had
been a senator now she's in her late sixties. She

(30:22):
ran ran the gauntlet of of of male dominated politics
for a long time, and she had to completely hide
who she was. She had to completely hide anything that
would have been considered feminine. And then we have Charlotte,
who's and actually really fun side note. When I was
down in l A having these meetings, in one of

(30:43):
the meetings, one of the like producing executives actually listed
off of people that a group of people they wanted
to play Charotte Walsh, and all of them were in
their thirties or like, and one of them was in
their twenties. What I actually, I almost like hung up
the phone and I got a text from my producing
partner who was like, don't hang up. And now you

(31:03):
want to hang up. I know you want to call them,
don't call it. Call just finished the call. And I
did finish the call. But on every other call I said,
it's important to me that Charlotte Walsh is a forty
seven year old woman. There are lots of forty seven
year old actresses in Hollywood, lots of fifty year old actresses,
and lets of sixty year old actresses in Hollywood who
look forty seven. UM Like, let's let's make her her
actual age, UM. And so Charlotte's forty seven. She's going

(31:26):
through her own stuff. She's also the mother of three
young kids under six years old. But then we have Leela,
who is her chief of staff, who I don't want
to give away any spoilers, and she she does something
at the end of the book to um in politics,
but she has a completely different view on it. She
doesn't want to put up with any mail bulls at all.

(31:47):
When Charlotte gets harassed, she's like, you need to talk out,
you need to speak up. And me too happened while
I was writing this book, or actually, me too happened
after I had already written the book, and then I
demanded the book back and Simon and shester got pissed,
and I'm like, no, I'm sorry, I've got to change
a bunch of stuff. The world changed again, um, and
so I wanted those three generations of women to reflect

(32:10):
how politics has changed for women in the past thirty years,
and how it's changed in the past two years for women.
So and also it'll it'll be great if it does
make it to the small screen because then we have
these really strong roles of women of all different ages
and we don't see that enough. Totally sort of along

(32:30):
that same vein, I was really excited to see in
real life all of these women who are running for
office who were really supporting each other. And thinking of
how Cynthia Nixon endorsed Alexandria Ocastio Cortes and then vice versa,
Cortes you know, endorsed her as well. I think they
were given these messages that ambitious women are caddy, that

(32:51):
they're you know, competing with each other, that they hate
each other, they want to tear each other down and impact.
In your book, that's not true and in your life
that's not true. Like, we have this this idea of women,
ambitious women as these horrible people who will you know,
step over anybody to get ahead and are treating their
fellow women awful and stabbing them in the back. But
that so often isn't true. You know where where do

(33:12):
you think that comes from? Pop culture? And men? I
hate saying it all the time. It's just it's so true.
It's just so true. I'm gonna make us all T shirts. No,
you don't have to apologize for blaming men. Men on
this podcast, do what all you want. But it is
true because I think that men's view of women is
that ambitious women are scary, because ambitious women are scary
to men, and so that's how we've seen them portrayed

(33:34):
for so long. Um, you're still right. I mean we
when we on the rare occasion we do see an
ambitious women, she's scheming, she's a shrewd, she's a bit
she has no friends. And that was that was actually
a note that my editor, um really wanted in Charlotte Wall.
She's like, we need to show that Charlotte wash has friends. Um,
she has supportive friends, She's surrounded by other women. She

(33:55):
wants to help other women, because it's just something we
don't see portrayed enough. We never Hillary Clinton had such
a close group of female friends supporting her, and such
a close group of female staffers who would have literally
done anything for her. And I know that because I've
spent so much time with her female staffers post campaign. Um.

(34:15):
They speak about her like she is Jesus Christ walk
in the earth right now. Oh my gosh. They love her.
They're so disappointed that the public doesn't know all of
the wonderful stories about her. And yet we never saw
that side of her. We were never allowed to see
that side of her. Her campaign tried to do it,
but the press never let us do it. And that's
one of the reasons that I wanted to try to

(34:36):
do it in fiction. I wanted to show Charlotte as
a vulnerable, flawed Also, she's flawed, She's not perfect. It
would have been so easy to write fan fiction and
be like, oh, women candidates are great. They're not, but
all male candidates aren't great either. But as a real
person and a real woman, Yeah, I'm so glad that
you brought up the Clinton friends thing. Um in her

(34:58):
big you know, messed up email hacking dumb thing. My
favorite favorite favorite email of all time that I literally
have have this phrase printed on a T shirt is
an email that she SAIDs to Huma, where she says,
should we be bad, you should get a kerm roulet.
Let's split a firm roulet. Like that isn't an email
that you could get from a friend, a friend being like, listen,

(35:19):
I know we have all this important, you know, business
not to talk about, but do you kind of want
to split a carm roulet? Yes? Yes, And I have
an homage to that in the book where they're in
a diner and I think I think it's a brownie
Sunday because I was like, you know, she got to
change it up, but she's like, let's be bad, let's
get that. I'm like, and I love that moment too
between those two women because it's just so human and

(35:40):
so real. It's like, yes, of course. And I actually
I think they order a salad two in the book
and they're both picking at this anemic salad and then
they're both digging into this Sunday because that and that's
I think about that all the time when I think
about what happened to Hillary Clinton in this race. I'm like,
she was just Hillary Clinton, just like us, just like us.

(36:01):
We have some more conversation with Joe, but we're gonna
have pause for one more quick break for word from
our sponsor. One thing I really appreciated that you included
was that Charlotte have these thoughts like am I ruining

(36:21):
my my children's lives? She had these doubts, At least
for me. When I see ambitious people a lot of time,
I think they must not have any doubts, which is
completely incorrect. They're human too. It was really important to
me that Charlotte had kind of the impostor syndrome that
I think we all have. I was, I was out
to dinner with a bunch of friends in New York

(36:43):
when I was up there um for the book, and
it was it was a table of just like the
most badass ambitious women you've ever met, um, you know,
like book additors, lawyers, politicians. And I was like, who
feels like a failure on a daily basis? And they
all raised their hand and I was like, me too,

(37:06):
why do we feel like that? Like every every like
kind of lame, mediocre man I know thinks that he's
winning every day. Um, you know, my husband has been
out of a job for two months, and like, if
you were like, should you run for office? He's like absolutely,
I'm like super qualified. Um. But as women, we doubt
ourselves and we don't talk enough about doubting ourselves or

(37:26):
feeling this imposter syndrome or feeling like a failure. And
I think even ambitious women feel that. I know even
ambitious women feel like and I really wanted to show
that with Charlotte, to show her doubts and show how
nervous she was. And one of the other things that
I learned from talking to the folks at Emily's List
was that historically, women won't run unless they think that
they are a hundred percent qualified to be running, whereas

(37:50):
a man will run if he has zero qualifications. I mean,
come on, let's be honest, um. And that's been a
barrier to women running for a long time. If Donald
did anything, I think it would show women that, you know,
a complete idiot can run for office. Oh my god,
of course I can do this. Um again, all right,
find two good things that Donald Trump did in the

(38:11):
midst of ruining the world. But yeah, it's again, we're
we're women were complex, were flawed. We've seen complex men
for the past hundred years, written about, talked about on
our screens, and now we're only just starting to get
the tip of the iceberg of what it's like to
really be a woman. Absolutely, something that you that you

(38:32):
tease out in the book a little bit, and that
you that I know that you've done in terms of research,
is talking to about the ways that women who aren't
running for office, the ones who are working on campaigns,
who are supporting campaigns, who are volunteering on campaigns, the
sort of climate that that they deal with as well
in terms of sexism. Can you can you talk a
bit about that? Oh my god? I mean, campaigns are
just an old boys club through and through um the majority,

(38:55):
the vast majority of campaign managers are still men. UM.
Most camp paign offices are like a frat house. I
mean we're talking like potato chip bags strewn on the floor,
people chain smoking, marble reds in a world where no
one still chained smokes. I no one smokes anymore except
on the campaign. You know, everyone going out for fast
food all the time, people playing pranks on each other.

(39:16):
I mean, just like boys. Campaigns run by boys. Um. Again,
it's starting to change, it's starting to be different. When
I was down in l A, I was with UM
Julia Peacock's campaign manager and they have an all women's
staff and she was like, we are so efficient. She's like,
we just we really get things done. We get things

(39:37):
done on time. Everyone's kind, everyone's pleasant to each other.
And again, I'm not saying that all women environments are perfect,
but they're they're definitely a little bit better. Um. You know,
on a campaign trail, I have a friend who who
did what was going through IVF in the beginning of
a campaign, and all of the men on the campaign

(40:00):
older just to quit. They're like, you can't work on
this campaign. Um, You're you're not. You're you're just not
equipped for it right now meaning and by equipped for
it meaning you're going to be weak. UM. Mothers are
treated terribly on the campaign trail. There's no flexibility given
for mothers to take care of their children. There's no
compensation given for daycare. That's been a huge barrier to
women candidates running UM, the fact that they can't use

(40:22):
campaign funds for daycare. UM, when even though they have
a full time job while running for office. Um, and
you can't run when you have two kids running and
running around and you don't have any support. Uh yeah,
I think again, it's changing. We're seeing campaigns run by
women for the first time pretty much ever, and we're

(40:46):
seeing a big difference in how campaigns are run in
that I think that they're becoming just a lot more
palatable to a lot of different kinds of people. Yeah,
I'm I cannot agree more with what you said. And
I've done a handful of campaigns in my day, and
I always say like, oh never, every time I do one,
I like never again, never again, never again, And I

(41:07):
always somehow wind up back on on them. I don't
know what happens, but I do think there is something
in my in my psyche or personality, and that gets
sort of addicted to it. You know. You get these
crushing loads and these like dizzy highs, and at a
certain point, when you've done them for a while, you
kind of can't see going back to a nine five
desk job. Like you can't see working a job where

(41:28):
you're not working these intense hours and having all these
ups and downs. And it's just a really unless you've
done it or been around it are reported on it.
It's a really weird environment that's difficult to describe, and
it sounds so awful. So that's why it sounds so
weird that then you would sort of become addicted to it.
But you do, um, you do. It's it's it's toxic

(41:50):
and weird and I can't even really like verbalize it,
but it's weird. But in in those campaign settings, I've
I've had campaign managers and state there's say things to
me like what did you expect from a campaign? Because
I if I went to someone and said, hey, this
sexist thing happened, or this racist thing happened, or this
gross thing happened, or this toxic thing happened, the answer

(42:12):
is always what did you expect on a campaign? Like
I'm happy that that that you know that is changing
and that there are more decision makers that are women
in folks of color and queer folks in these spaces
because for so long it was a boys club, not
even a men's called a boys club. It was a
gross place. And you know, I always when I did campaigns,

(42:33):
I always came back as the worst version of myself,
the version of myself that ate terribly didn't sleep sort
of weirdly, you know, bragged about living a really healthy lifestyle,
you know, was hitting substances hard, you know, drinking a lot.
Like the worst version of who I am as a person.
That is a version of myself that I have to
be to make a campaign work, and it's it's it's bad.

(42:56):
The version of myself who puts up with it's really
sexist bull crap and it doesn't speak up of that.
Like that is the version of who I became when
I did campaigns. Yeah, no, totally. It was. I was
blown away the other day talking to Sarah Holland Julia
Peacocks campaign manager, because she was like, oh, we make
sure that everyone has self care days. You know, we're

(43:17):
making sure that everyone everyone gets time off. If you
just come and you're like, I need a self care
day to self care day to day. Um, including the candidate,
including Julia. Julia's like, you know what, no, I'm out
tapping out today. They're like, we're totally accommodating of that.
We work around it, we figured it out. And I'm like,
oh my god, that's crazy, Like you were what do
you say self care day? My jaws trap. It was

(43:37):
like what you have a what what day? You know,
because I mean, yeah, I can tell you hard stories,
but the idea that you would be able to even
take a day just to sort of, you know, set
back and collect yourself. On the campaigns I've been on,
I'm sure that I'm sure some of them are different
than my experience, but that was just laughable at the
idea that would happen would be laughable. So I'm really

(43:57):
happy that that seems to be changing laughable, you know.
And Hillary Clinton fought really hard. She's like, I want
to make sure that my campaign staffers have health insurance.
Um I told I heard a story the other day
that they that she wanted to make sure that if
her campaign staffers needed things like IVF or reproductive help,
she was going to give that too. I mean that

(44:18):
that was a complete anathema to what happens on every
other campaign, where not only are you your grossest, worst
version of yourself, but you're also paid nothing. I mean,
the pay is terrible on campaign, so I mean, you're
pretty much living your worst life. It's so true. Fun fact,
a friend of mine ran the North Carolina Clinton headquarters.
I'll let her forget her saying Oh, we have a

(44:39):
lactation room. And it sounds like such a small thing,
but the fact that they included a place for nursing moms,
I mean, it shouldn't it shouldn't be revolutionary that that
your campaign headquarters has a lactation room. But it was.
To me. I thought, Wow, they were really saying, if
you are a new mom, you can still work here. Yeah,
exactly exactly, whereas when don't have a lactation room, you're saying,

(45:02):
as a new mom, you can't work here, that that
this is a hostile work environment for you, Like actually
a hostile work environment for you, because if you've ever
been a new mom, you know that if you don't
have a lactation room, you're gonna be squeezing milk out
of your boob into the toilet. Yeah, it's it's it's
weird how those little things can mean so much in
terms of the environment that you're cultivating on a campaign.

(45:24):
I wanted to ask about. The book takes place in Pennsylvania,
and that's where Charlotte grew up, and she moved to
Silicon Valley and ascended the corporate ladder and became one
of the quote elite um one thing we heard a
lot about post seen election, but after pretty much every
American election, really is this divide between rural and urban America.

(45:48):
And from what I understand, Pennsylvania has never had a
female governor or senator. Right, pretty much one of the
most hostile states to women in the country. Uh. And
people don't think about pennsylvani you like that. But I
chose Pennsylvania. I'm from p A, my dad's from northeastern
rural coal country PA. It's a state I can write

(46:08):
really well. But it's also a microcosm of the country
as a whole. Uh. Pennsylvania has never elected a woman's senator,
they've never elected a woman governor, and they currently have
an all male delegation to Congress. There's some incredible women
running for the House in PA right now, and I
encourage everyone to go, like, look them up, throw your
support behind them, because Pennsylvania is the epitome of a

(46:31):
boys club and it's it's a terrible thing. And it's
not a terrible thing because I'm like, oh man, terrible.
It's a terrible thing because there's no diversity in that state. Um.
You know, I wanted to write Pennsylvania so that I
could write about that divide. Pennsylvania has Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
vibrant urban metropolis. Is Philadelphia has you pen which is

(46:53):
an Ivy League university. I mean, it's like eight. It's
like the liberal the liberal elite personify in a lot
of ways. But then you go forty five minutes outside
of Philly and you have Amish country, you have serious
working farms. You go up north, you have the areas
of the state where the factories were shut down in

(47:14):
this generation, where the coal mines were shut down in
this generation, and you have a lot of working poor
in that state. And my favorite character in Charlotte Walsh
Likes to Win is actually Kara, and she's Charlotte's sister
in law who still lives up in northeastern p a
r Right outside of Scranton. She's like, whatever, I don't
get politics. What the hell have politicians ever done for me?

(47:37):
What the hell has anyone ever done for me? But
she's smart, she's smart, she's sassy, um she and she's
working class. And I wanted to create a working class
hero in this book just as much as I wanted
to create an ambitious woman from Silicon Valley coming and
we have we can see Charlotte too, coming from her

(47:57):
Silicon Valley bubble and coming back two areas in Pennsylvania,
in the area where she grew up, which has a
lot of the working poor, and she grew up working
poor um, and we can see her chafe at that.
And I think that's a very real thing for a
lot of politicians just out of curiosity. Do you identify
with that aspect of Charlotte as someone who grew up
in those kinds of communities and then moved to California

(48:19):
to be like a flashy, successful writer and journalist. I mean,
I actually and I moved you to New York to
be a gossip columnist in my twenties, so like I
was going to like movie premieres in Bungalow eight through
my twenties, like there, you couldn't have been more different,
um than the way that I grew up. Uh. And
so I completely related to that with Charlotte, and I

(48:39):
wanted to just puncture the bubble is the thing I
wanted to puncture Charlotte's bubble um. And her husband is
really her husband is the one who represents the bubble,
because her husband is really bought into Silicon Valley and
the fact that Silicon Valley is quote unquote normal when
there's nothing normal about Silicon Valley. There's nothing normal about
what life looks like out here. Yeah, I think that
the way that you do that is masterful, and I

(49:01):
think it does sort of go along the lines of
how we actually live that people who like I'm probably
someone who is in a you know, East Coast liberal bubble,
but my background, my roots are certainly not East Coast city.
It's it's it's rural small towns, and that even like,
you can get in your bubble but still maintain these
kind of tenuous connections to your to your pass and

(49:22):
to your roots, and navigating that can be really really complicated,
like navigating what it looks like to be someone living
in New York City and living a glamorous, glossy life
and going to Bungalow eight who has these roots inside
of her. Navigating that is actually really interesting, And I
don't think that's the story that we're told often. I
think the author who we're told people are city folk
who don't care about rural people or their rural folk,

(49:45):
and you don't actually tease out the intersections there in
and I think, I think you personally do that so well,
and the book does it very well as well. Thank you,
I mean, and that was really it was just important
to me because again, I think that we operate in
in books, um, and on TV and in movies in stereotypes,
and we operate in stereopy. We operate in the rural

(50:06):
stereotype and the urban stereotype. And people are not People
are not a stereotype. Real people are not a stereotype.
And that's one of the reasons that I wanted to
have this book tour. Driving through the middle of the country.
I we had a lot of farmers at our events,
women farmers UM when we were driving through Kentucky and
southern Indiana, who related to Charlotte, who were some of

(50:30):
the most I wouldn't call they're not liberal, but they're progressive. Um,
some of the most progressive women that I've ever met,
and who defied every stereotype that you have of a farmer.
I mean, they were put together as like, I mean,
I looked like crap I was eating gas station food
on my book tour, like they looked shic as hell, um,
And I want to just I want to break those stereotypes.

(50:50):
We have to break those stereotypes or else we're never
gonna be able to relate to people who aren't quote
unquote like us. Absolutely, And I think, I think, yeah,
that is an important work, Like I I got a
little bit id with you know, and blah blah blah.
But it's not even about that. It's about understanding the
lives of people who are different than us. And I
think I think your work really drives at home and

(51:12):
where people are coming from. I mean, you know, Charlotte's
sister in law lives in a part of the state
where she hasn't been taken care of, and she's piste off,
and she's piste off. She's like, you know, we don't
name like real life politicians in the book because I
was like, it's just too easy. It's just too easy. Um,
So we wanted we we really wanted to root it
in fiction. But she's piste off that the last administration

(51:34):
didn't do anything to make her life any better, and
in fact, her life is worse right now, and Charlotte
has to reckon with that. She's because she's like, the
last administration was wonderful, but we have to think about
the issues that are important to people, the kitchen table issues,
and they're the things that actually affect their lives. UM.
And it's I think it's hard to reckon with when

(51:55):
you have been in an urban bubble and you don't
know anyone outside of that bubble. Um, and we put
ourselves in an echo chamber we do, rather than actually
getting out and actually having conversations with people or seeing
people that are different from us. One thing that became
pretty clear to me reading this that I suppose it
is pretty obvious, but um, when you decided to run

(52:17):
for office, to varying degrees, kind of everyone in your
family and in your circle is running for office, they're
going to be examined, um talked about. And the relationship
between Charlotte and her husband undergoes I mean, probably an understatement,
tremendous train um. And we do get to see both

(52:37):
sides of it because, like you mentioned earlier, Um, Charlotte
Walsh's opponent, his wife gets pulled into it as well. Uh.
And just it's a lot I'd never appreciated that if
later in life you decide to do this, if you
decide to run for office, then it's a decision that
impacts almost everyone you know. Oh yeah, Um, marriages fall

(53:02):
apart on the campaign trail. Um. And in addition to
campaigns being gross boys clubs, I mean, they're also just
a hotbed of incestuous inner campaign there can confirm. It's
just it's it's so true. But a marriage, you you

(53:23):
don't run just as you. And this is particularly true
for women. Your whole family is running for office. Your
whole family is open to scrutiny. Your whole family has
to work that campaign, which means they're showing up at
campaign events. There they have to smile. They can't look
piste off, they can't look annoyed to be there, even
though of course they are. No one wants to go
to one more state fair. No one wants to go

(53:44):
to one more car dealership, ribbon cutting, No like, these
events are exhausting and frankly boring. Um. And then throw
into the mix with a woman running for office. Um,
you have that kind of ambitioning that makes even strong
feminist men uncomfortable. And I've seen it in my own marriage. Um.

(54:07):
You know, with when now that my husband's looking for
a job, and you know, I've got this book coming
out and I'm working on all these projects. He's the
most feminist man you'll you'll ever meet. I mean, he
really is. He read all the Judy Blue Books as
a little boy. He cried a blood and it is
still he still chafes. I think that he still chafes
because it's not something that's the norm, and he feels
like he should be out there supporting, supporting the family

(54:28):
and doesn't know what to do with all of my ambition.
And we see that in Charlotte's marriage that her husband
really he's told to. He takes a hiatus from from
work because I'm silicon value allowed to take a hiatus.
It's ridiculous. Um. But he becomes the primary caregiver for
their three children, because when a woman is running for office,

(54:49):
she gets asked all the time, who's watching your children?
Who's watching your children? And it's bad optics to have
a nanny. Not bad optics for a man to have
a nanny, bad optics for a woman to have a nanny.
So he starts to he becomes the primary ever and
he hates it. He can't. He just he's not programmed
for it. And their marriage goes into crisis on this
campaign trail and it's just it's one of the most

(55:09):
real parts of the book because I have seen so
many marriages actually end after a campaign. Yeah, oh my gosh.
I again, in my own experience, I can confirm that
campaigns can really re havoc on your personal and romantic life.
I think anyone who's done a campaign will probably agree.

(55:30):
And I think, yeah, it's it's I think it's good
to give people this lens into the inner workings of
the people who are running for office and the people
around them, because what you see our TV is I
think kind of manufactured. Him has to be, because no
one wants to think like, oh, they're having marital trouble.
Oh they're arguing, Oh, like their domestic life isn't is

(55:53):
in turmoil because that's all like you said, it's bad optics,
And so you're kind of you kind of know you're
seeing this manufact extured version of perfection, but we're kind
of not acknowledging the reality, which is that, Yeah, campaigns
are stressful. Yeah they take a toll on of marriage.
It makes sense, Yeah, exactly exactly. And I another reason

(56:13):
I wanted to write this book really was that everything
that a politician does is speak is in sound Bites.
Is in sound bites is about optics. We so rarely
see the realities of what it's like on a campaign trail,
or the human side of a campaign trail, and I
just wanted to expose that in a way um to
make it. And also, I think that politics to the

(56:35):
average person seems like something that isn't important to their
lives anymore. It seems something like something that's so far away.
And I thought that by humanizing the campaign and humanizing
the politicians, we could bring it back to the way
that it's supposed to be. That we live in a democracy.
These people are representing us, and we need to care
about politics. But I understand I think people are just

(56:58):
so exhausted from the whore race tabloid style that we
cover politicians these days, and people want to check out,
And I'm hoping the book makes them want to check
back in. I love that. I love that so much,
just so true. You know. I've heard people say things like, oh,
I don't really do politics, I'm not really interested in politics,
as if they're talking about a TV show they don't

(57:18):
happen to watch, like oh I don't watch sharp Objects,
you know, But this is people's lives, and a lot
of us really don't have the privilege of saying I
don't care about x y Z policy. I don't. I
cannot pay attention to what's happening on x y Z
legislation because it's our lives. And when people say I
don't really do politics, I'm not really into politics and
check out of politics, part of me get it, but

(57:40):
part of me gets so angry because, yeah, I don't
really As as women, as people of color, a lot
of us just don't have that that luxury. No. Absolutely,
politics has to be a part of your life, and
it should be a part of your life, and it
shouldn't be a part of your life that's also considered
so negative. I just think that we've turned politics into
a dirty word too. I mean, one of the things

(58:01):
you're not supposed to talk about in polite conversation, along
with religion insects, is politics. Like why is that? Shouldn't
we all be talking about politics with each other? And
you know, as a woman, it's it's hard to think
about the things in my life that could be better
if politicians were just better. I think that there are
a lot there are a lot of people who can
check out who have the privilege of checking out, but

(58:22):
a lot of us cannot do that. Um, and a
lot of us who cannot do that or should not
do that, are checking out anyway because they're just like,
how does that? How does this even affect my life?
And it's see, it all just seems so far away,
like it's all done in some ivory tower in Washington,
as opposed to something that's happening and should be happening
in their backyard. One of my favorite stories that Lauren Bear,

(58:45):
who's running for Congress in Florida, told me was that
when she announced that she was running, she didn't have
any of her platforms on her website and people got pissed.
They didn't understand like it really it freaked them out
because that's the status quo. And she said, I'm running
for Congress to represent you, and so I need to
talk to you. I need to figure out what you

(59:07):
want me to do before I come up with these platforms,
before I come up with the things that I'm going
to do to represent you in office. So give me
a month to listen to you and then I'll come
up with my ideas. And that it sounded so revolutionary
at the time, because you know, so many male politicians
come in just like their balls swinging all over the place,

(59:28):
being like, this is what I think needs to get done.
But the fact of the matter is a politician is
just a representative of you, and that's what they should be.
And we need to remember that and go back to
our roots remembering that, because if we check out, then
we don't let them represent us, if we don't have
that voice. And I'm not saying it's a perfect system,

(59:48):
God knows it's not. But but if we if we
stay home, if we check out, then we don't even
get the chance, we don't even get the option for
them to represent us. And they should be representing us
the ship that's that's actually there one job. Actually they're
one and only job. And I think that And again
I'm not saying, raw raw, all women are perfect. We're not.

(01:00:09):
We're better, but we're not perfect. But one of the
things that they do is they really do listen. And
Hillary Clinton, there's this great part in her biography where
she talks about just filling notebooks and notebooks of with
notes from listening to people and then having her staff
archived them for her because the listening was the most
important part, I actually think, and this is just me

(01:00:29):
with my big Hillary Clinton opinions, I think that was
probably her favorite part of the campaign trail, was the
listening as opposed to the performing. And I and that's
Charlotte Walsh's favorite part too. She enjoys listening. She enjoys
the complexities of thinking about how she can fix the
things that she's listening to, as opposed to the performance
that a campaign trail has become because of, you know,

(01:00:51):
the fifteen second news cycle that exists. Now, Oh man,
I have not this is gonna make me all listful.
But one of my favorite Clinton emails, I think her
email scandal was like my favorite thing about it was
the emails that did not get reported. There was a
story of her trying to help a little girl I
think from Afghanistan, and they had a photo op where
they brought her to America and this and that, and

(01:01:12):
you know, the story ended. And then after what it
turned out that this little girl actually didn't like things
did not improve for her, like her life after whatever
like photo up they did and intervention they did, her
life actually wasn't that great. And so months later Hillary
Clinton in an email, was like, is there something that
could be done to improve her life? That's kind of thing.
And that was the thing I loved so much about

(01:01:34):
Clinton was that she seemed like someone who, even when
the cameras were off, gave it like the photo off
with this little girl that she was trying to you know,
help was over, had been over for months, but upon
finding out that her life had actually not improved, in
an email that she thought would be seen by nobody,
was trying to ask questions about what they could do

(01:01:54):
to still help her even after the fact. Like those
are the stories that I that I that resonate with
me when it comes to politicians and politicians that elected
officials when the cameras aren't there, when do you think
it's just you in an email? How are you? How
are you representing the people who put their faith in you?
And I really again not to get to rob rock Clinton,

(01:02:15):
but that was something that I that I really connected with.
Oh no, me too, And I loved that email. In fact,
I think a best selling book would actually be Hillary
Clinton's Emails that you never read. Hillary Clinton's emails that
you never paid attention to. I mean, like, let's split
a cramber lay like, let's fix this little girl's life.
And that's what I want to show. In Charlotte, Wash
likes to win, like I want to show those human aspects.

(01:02:35):
And we kind of have a moment like that in
Charlotte where she's doing a photo op with um babies
who are born with opioid addiction, and she's told, just
do the photo op, hold the crying, whimpering baby, and
she's like, how can I fix this? Like, how how
can I talk about actually fixing this as opposed to
putting something that will tug at people's heart screens on

(01:02:57):
on in these new stories and then forget about it
the next day. UM. So you know, I'm not all wrong.
I'm not all rob rob Hillary Clinton. I think that
her campaign was flawed. I think that she was a
flawed candidate um in so many ways. But at the
same time, a lot of the things that I know
about her personally and that people closer have told me

(01:03:19):
really did inspire a lot of Charlotte I am. I
want to talk about the ending, but I I feel
like we can't without spoiling it for listeners. I'm so
intrigued by it, But I guess that means some people
hate the ending. My editor and my agent both told
me not to end the book that way, and I

(01:03:40):
disagreed with them, and I went against their advice. One
woman gave me a one star review on Amazon the
other day and demanded her money back from Simon and
Schuster because of the ending. What I can say without
spoiling anything, really is that the ending does not It's
not all tied up with a big red, fancy bow.
And I that's because real life isn't all tied up

(01:04:04):
with a fancy bow. I think we're living in a
world of anxiety and uncertainty right now. And I wanted reality.
I wanted the book to reflect reality um in a
lot of ways. And I wanted to end the book
in a way that we would start a conversation. The
whole goal of writing this book. And I wrote this
book when I was not planning to write anything. Last year,
I was launching the podcast, I had a newborn, I

(01:04:27):
was pregnant, and I had a newborn, I was tired,
and I just think it's so important to start a conversation,
and I think the ending does that, but it pisces
some people off. And so every time I talk about it.
I tell them you can email me, we can talk
about it. We could have a skype talk about it,
we can have an email, we can have a text
chat about it. UM. And so yeah, if it's the
kind of thing that really resonates with you or makes

(01:04:49):
you real, real angry, then just text me to hear
that listeners, or you can leave me a one star review,
of which I will respond to. On Amazon, I responded
to I never respond to reviews, I never even read them.
And I responded to it. I was like, let's have
a conversation. Here's my email. I love it, UM, and

(01:05:10):
I feel like you have started a conversation. I think
I think I have. I think we're we're we really
are finally talking about it. And and that's that's the
most important thing that we talk about these women candidates.
At my events, I get asked all the time. They're like, well,
where are all these women candidates? And I like lower
my voice to this conspiratorial whisper, and I'm like, they're everywhere.

(01:05:31):
And that's all I wanted. I wanted people to be like, Okay, great,
I'm gonna go find them. And we have like a
resource guide in the back of the book, like it's
a weekly reader or something like. Go to Emily's list,
go to she runs like here, go to emerge. These
are places you can go to find women running on
both sides of the aisle. We we list organizations that
are partisan and some that are nonpartisan. Go just support women.

(01:05:57):
That's all, that's all I want. I think it's happening. Well,
thank you so much for speaking with us, Joe. Where
can listeners find you? Um So, I'm my website, Joe
Piazza dot com, um or Joe Piazza author on Instagram,
and Charlotte Walsh likes to win It's She's on Amazon,

(01:06:17):
she's in all the indie bookstores and hopefully fingers crossed
knock on all the things. She will be on the
television screen in the next year or so. So let's
hope that all works out for her. Yes, absolutely, that

(01:06:37):
brings us to the end of this episode. And since
we kind of got to talk in for a while
with Joe, we're gonna skip listener mail for this one,
but it will be back. But if folks want to
send us email, how can they do that? Annie, Well,
we would love to hear from them, and they can
do it by emailing us at mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot com. That's right, and we're also on

(01:06:59):
social media. You can find us on Instagram at stuff
mom Ever told You, and us always on Twitter at
mom Stuff Podcast. And thanks. It's always to a producer
feeling Faith's