Caitlin Moscatello, SEE JANE WIN
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[0:49]I'm here today with Caitlin Muscatello,
[0:52]who's the author of C.J.N. Win, the inspiring story of the women changing American politics.
[0:57]An award-winning journalist, Caitlin has written for New York Magazines the Cut,
[1:00]Van B. Fair, Time, Elle, Marie Claire,
[1:03]Oh, the Oprah Magazine, and many other publications.
[1:06]She is the founder of Repro, a newsletter about reproductive rights legislation.
[1:10]She currently lives in New York with her husband and son.
[1:12]So, thanks Caitlin for coming on mom's set up time to read books.
[1:15]Hi, thanks for having me.
[1:17]So, your book, C.J.N. Win, please tell us what it's about and what inspired you to write it.
[1:23]Right, so C.J.N. Win, I started working on this book in February of 2017.
[1:29]So, this was just a couple months after the 2016 election,
[1:32]where many women across this country thought that we were going to see the first female president.
[1:36]We obviously know that that did not happen, and there was definitely,
[1:41]the public temperature had definitely changed in those months.
[1:44]So, right after the election, we know that groups like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood were
[1:49]being inundated with donations from men and women, but mostly from women.
[1:53]And then, of course, there was a women's march where, so in 60 countries around the world,
[1:57]people were taking to the streets. And right around that time,
[2:00]I want to say it was right around the women's march.
[2:02]There started to be these early reports that groups like
[2:04]emerge America and MLAs lists.
[2:06]So, these groups that train and recruit Democratic women to run for office,
[2:11]they were being just completely flooded with applications.
[2:14]So, in a typical year, maybe there'd be like 900 women who they might be able to get into their
[2:19]fold. I think at that point, there were like 14,000.
[2:22]So, it was like very, very clear that something was happening.
[2:27]And so, I kind of just decided to follow that.
[2:30]So, I write about women. I tend to write about gender. I write about women.
[2:33]I really don't consider myself a political writer.
[2:36]But I was interested in the fact that women were doing this in a big number.
[2:40]And I kind of also saw it as like, if this works, if these women actually run,
[2:45]if they make it on the ballot, so they have to get past their primaries.
[2:49]And if they win, this is really a lasting action.
[2:52]I mean, it's one thing to march. It's one thing to donate.
[2:54]Those are certainly great and worthwhile endeavors.
[2:58]But if we really want to talk about change and we want to talk about getting more women
[3:02]in leadership and getting more women in positions of power
[3:05]and really just getting more better representation.
[3:07]Like, we're a democracy. We should have more women in office.
[3:10]And so, with that, I just started calling these groups and connecting with women who were
[3:16]many of them were even just thinking about running when I started talking with them.
[3:20]I ended up closely following the journeys of four candidates.
[3:24]So I guess I'll use their titles because now they actually all ended up winning.
[3:29]But now Congresswoman Abigail Spamberger, so she's a mom of three, a former CIA operative.
[3:35]When I met her, I interviewed her over the phone a few times.
[3:38]And then the first time I went down there was right after she launched her campaign.
[3:42]And she was running it out of her daughter's playroom.
[3:44]And it was just like complete mayhem, basically.
[3:47]And she ended up becoming the first woman to ever represent her district in Congress
[3:53]in the first Democrat since 1968.
[3:56]So this was a, in the beginning, was considered a huge long shot of a race.
[4:00]There's London Lamar, who is a state representative.
[4:02]London Lamar, who is now the youngest black woman in the Tennessee state legislature,
[4:07]27 years old, Anna Escamani, who was a former Planned Parenthood staffer.
[4:11]And she was able to take her activism and bring that into a political campaign.
[4:15]Now she is a state representative in Florida.
[4:18]She's the first Iranian-American elected to office in Florida.
[4:22]And she ran this really bold progressive campaign in a purple district.
[4:25]So by no means, she was out there talking about abortion access,
[4:29]talking about sensible gun legislation.
[4:31]She lives in the district where the Parkland shooting happened a few years ago.
[4:36]And more than 40 people were gunned down in LGBTQ nightclub.
[4:40]So she really ran this bold progressive campaign and won, and won by a landslide.
[4:45]And then there's Catalina Cruz.
[4:46]So we're having this conversation here in New York.
[4:48]Catalina Cruz, the first dreamer elected to office in New York.
[4:54]She, or she was undocumented when she was growing up and then ended up becoming a US citizen.
[5:00]She's a attorney and has the most incredible backstory ever.
[5:07]So I ended up following their journeys closely.
[5:08]And then as I was doing this, the story grew.
[5:11]So I had no idea.
[5:13]People say to me, they're like, oh, you were really onto something.
[5:15]You saw this before.
[5:17]And I'm like, I would love if that were the case.
[5:19]But really, I just thought this is a journey, this is a story worth telling.
[5:23]I didn't know it was constantly a moving target the whole election.
[5:27]And I didn't know until election night, just like everyone else, that this was an inspiring story.
[5:32]The book was initially when I pitched it to publishers, which was, again,
[5:36]like back in the spring of 2017, it was CJ and Run.
[5:39]And then they all won.
[5:41]And so I was talking with my editor and I'm like, well, I guess we could make this,
[5:44]you know, a little big at the CJ and Win.
[5:46]So we ended up changing the title.
[5:48]Wow.
[5:48]Well, that was a very long answer.
[5:51]It was great to meet you.
[5:52]No, that was perfect.
[5:53]I loved it.
[5:54]So you talked about what you were just touching on briefly.
[5:58]The aftermath of the last presidential election, you said, we know now that Clinton's
[6:02]lost, however, devastating signal at the beginning, rather than an end, instead of
[6:06]wallowing passively, women were moved to act.
[6:09]And then when you were talking about how you had planned to write about the personal journeys,
[6:13]you wanted to talk about this greater narrative, which I know we just talked about a little bit.
[6:17]But when you're talking about your focus shifting and when you're actually down in it,
[6:22]like following the people, all the candidates and everything,
[6:25]like take me through how you made that transition.
[6:28]Like, did you say, oh gosh, maybe now I need to like go do research on this or now I need to
[6:35]bring in all of this or like, how did you grow the whole scope?
[6:38]Or did you just sort of passively watch it unfold?
[6:41]No, I mean, nothing was really that passive, I guess.
[6:43]But yeah, I mean, it seemed passive from the way you told it.
[6:46]It was a, this was a lot of reporting.
[6:48]This is almost two years of reporting.
[6:50]So the main characters in the book, one of the things people ask me all the time,
[6:54]like how did you pick the women that you followed?
[6:56]And that was a whole big process.
[6:58]And there are people I interviewed who didn't end up in the book,
[7:00]or they ended up in the book in a more minor way.
[7:02]But I wanted women who were going to be really candid with me, who were not going to
[7:07]kind of give me these button-up answers.
[7:09]But who also were going to commit to at least one interview a month,
[7:13]who would let me come to their homes, to their districts, and let me shadow them.
[7:18]A lot of the interviews were, these are things, the one thing a candidate doesn't have is
[7:23]extra time.
[7:24]So the fact that these women were able to sign up for that was a huge thing.
[7:28]But that was a lot of reporting, a lot of transcripts.
[7:30]I mean, you're on a podcast, so you know, right?
[7:32]So it's just taking all of those conversations and molding them into a story.
[7:36]But then on top of it, yes, there were news reports coming out.
[7:39]So I had this like, I had my office in my apartment and like women would,
[7:44]some women would announce, or they would be like a big news story.
[7:47]And I would like printed out, and I would tack it up on this bulletin board in my office.
[7:51]And I did end up the second, there's three sort of parts of the book.
[7:56]It's broken up into three sections.
[7:58]And the last part of the book I do write more about, I think, this as a movement.
[8:04]And so there's a whole chapter about how this was happening, the surge of democratic
[8:09]women running for office, what was happening in the background?
[8:12]Well, yes, there was a women's march happening, and that ended up being its own movement.
[8:15]There was the Me Too movement that was also taking place.
[8:18]You know, shortly before the election, we had the, you know, Brett Kavanaugh and Dr.
[8:24]Christine Blase forward hearing and how that influenced everything.
[8:29]So there was a snowballing effect and a lot of reporting got, it was really, really difficult
[8:34]to decide what to put in the book and also to make sure that we didn't lose the personal narratives
[8:40]of the women who I had been following.
[8:43]So I sort of think about it as these two layers.
[8:46]So there's like this very in the weeds layer where your eye level with these women,
[8:50]you're in their homes with them, you're on the campaign trial with them.
[8:54]I spent election night sitting on the floor of Abigail Spammerger's hotel room with her.
[8:59]Well, just like her, we were sitting there waiting to see what the results would be.
[9:02]So there's this very personal layer.
[9:04]But then there is this much bigger story that gets woven through.
[9:08]And I think really comes out in the last section of the book, which includes
[9:13]how these different movements were influencing the campaigns.
[9:16]And then the other thing that I think is really important to the book is that
[9:19]three of the four main characters are women of color.
[9:21]And I also wanted to make sure that the intersectionality, that the issues that women,
[9:29]because not, when running for office as women, right, sounds like this one big thing and that
[9:33]there's one sort of blueprint for it and there's not.
[9:35]It's very different to run for office if you are a low-income woman.
[9:39]If you are a woman of color, if you're an LGBTQ woman and all these trans women,
[9:43]so just getting these things in there and trying to shed light on them without losing
[9:48]sort of that very personal feeling of the book too.
[9:51]One really interesting part of the book was this unspoken sisterhood you found between
[9:57]women and the candidates who were running and that people would...
[10:00]take them under their wing and say things like how are you holding up and assume that it was
[10:04]like such a challenge and are you making time for yourselves if people would say are you doing
[10:09]okay has your self-care and Abigail's fan burger would say I'm like I don't have fucking self-care.
[10:15]I'm running for Congress. I'll take a nap in November. Do you want me to win this or do you want
[10:19]me to go to yoga? Which is basically in my experience with her and having interviewed her for
[10:26]you know really followed her story for two years is very a very Abigail mindset. Yes so she I mean
[10:33]she's coming at this year to remember too she's a former CIA operative right so she's a
[10:37]she's a cool customer like there's not much that sort of rattles her and I think something that
[10:42]she I remember when she we had this conversation she was telling me about this
[10:45]she was actually about to head into a fundraiser she was here in New York and so we met up
[10:49]and I was interviewing her and just kind of catching up on the previous few weeks and she said it
[10:54]was well-intentioned a lot at the time right so she there were we know that around these these
[10:58]women who were running that there was a huge sort of brown swell of women who were newly becoming
[11:04]activists who or who were newly engaging in the political process so women who hadn't canvassed or
[11:10]phoned banked for a candidate before were really kind of joining these movements and getting behind
[11:14]these female candidates and that was a big part of what helped them win and she recognized that
[11:20]and a lot a lot of time it would be well-meaning right but there's a difference I think the way
[11:24]she put it was something like there's a difference between someone saying to you oh are you hungry
[11:28]let me go grab you a plate let me go make you a plate you're busy you're talking to people
[11:32]we're at this fundraiser and how are you doing are you hungry how are you really doing like oh you
[11:38]look you look skinny you know that kind of thing is is not helpful and so anyone who says you
[11:45]like skinny to me I would find it's very helpful so just keep it coming but now I see what you're
[11:51]saying right but this is more of this action so she did talk about some of those interactions and
[11:56]like you know questioning too like would would you say this about a male candidate like would you
[12:00]be pulling over you know people would talk to her sister at an event some kind of I'd be like how
[12:05]is she really doing now like she seems fine but like tell me that how is she really doing as if
[12:09]she should be falling apart at the seams and I do think there's a recognition among when
[12:15]women and I understand this a bit better now I'm a new mom and I kind of get this now I do
[12:19]think there's a recognition among women especially women who are moms that life is so hectic
[12:25]and she was a mom of three young girls and so her daughters that when she was campaigning were
[12:31]all under the age of 10 so and she was working and then she was then she ended up leaving her job
[12:37]to run this campaign a campaign is grueling and so people who I think are really familiar with
[12:42]that process as well a campaign on its own is grueling being a mother of three on its own is
[12:47]grueling so combining those two things I can imagine how women would look at that and say gosh how
[12:53]is she doing it you did write about really beautifully how exhausting it was to be a candidate and
[12:58]I feel like just following this book along and seeing what it was like really showed that as much
[13:03]as told it but you said typically we get to see only a very narrow view of what it's like to be
[13:08]a candidate in reality running for office is exhausting running for office means dealing with
[13:12]online trolls and Facebook rants and attacks in your character running for office is a time
[13:16]sec it takes you away from your family your job the gym you joined months ago and haven't set
[13:20]foot in since running for office means having men tell you how you should wear your hair running
[13:24]for office means having women tell you that you should start smaller running for office is a long
[13:29]hard slog a brutal marathon that often pits women against centuries of bias and yet as you say
[13:35]in the book most women say well someone had to run yeah so tell me a little about that and the
[13:41]impetus for all these women yeah and what we know right from the 2018 elections is that there were
[13:46]so many first time candidates so these were women who had not run for office before who
[13:51]something I would hear a lot is actually that these women were perhaps more engaged than the
[13:56]average person right so they might be really involved locally in their communities or with various
[14:01]nonprofits or things like that but and they a lot of them would tell me oh I always was kind of
[14:07]interested in running for office I just thought it was something I would do later in my life
[14:12]and this is really common so there's a lot of research that speaks to this but the things that
[14:16]have tended to keep women off the ballot historically is one that they don't think they're qualified
[14:21]enough or that they have to have this perfect political resume in order to run and the others that
[14:26]no one asked them to run no one encourages them to run men get encouraged to run for office
[14:31]and men are also and we see this outside of the political world as well but or much more frequently
[14:35]or maybe it would say like well I might not have all the qualifications but I can do this like I
[14:40]think I should do this I would be good at it so those things really went away to a certain
[14:46]extent I should say not completely but those things really went away I think with the 2016 election
[14:50]and that women saw in Hillary Clinton this incredibly qualified candidate who had a long political
[14:56]resume they saw her lose and she lost to she lost to a man who many Americans knew as the star
[15:04]of the apprentice a man with no political qualifications to speak of and who on top of that had run
[15:11]a blatantly racist and sexist campaign and they saw him take her place and so I think there was this
[15:17]feeling and I would hear this from women when I was talking to them but there was this feeling of kind
[15:21]of well if that guy can like if he can be president of the United States then surely I can run
[15:27]for my state legislature or my city council or for Congress and what that starts to do is it starts
[15:33]to kind of build a pipeline so the more women we get into these state legislatures and in Congress you
[15:38]know then you start talk then you start you think about the future you think about 10 years from now
[15:41]20 years from now and what the impact of that can be I've totally lost sight of the question
[15:47]absolutely I meet him but that's really interesting I think you said so I wanted to go back to
[15:54]you about Spanberger and her school age kids is that you said in the beginning of her campaign
[15:59]she was afraid to admit that her days were young yeah because it would somehow make her seem less
[16:04]qualified that she'd be too distracted or have too much else going on in a way and that by the end
[16:08]of her campaign she was like completely embracing it and it's like these are the ages of my kids
[16:12]I have school age still you know she wasn't like dancing around anymore well this is one of the great
[16:17]examples of how women changed the conversation in 2018 so there's what we know and again this is
[16:23]this comes from from from research but what we know is that female candidates with young children
[16:29]voters tend to express concern how those women would handle balancing the demands of their family
[16:36]with the demands of their constituents and men don't face that because male candidates don't
[16:42]face that because it's too it's often assumed that if they have children their wives are at home
[16:46]with kids and actually having kids really benefits male candidates you know have a sort of that
[16:51]idea of the family man and it shows responsibility and maybe and some people might see that as
[16:57]saying something about his character and what have you and with women there's just more of this
[17:02]concern and I think a lot of that just comes from the fact that we still think of mothers as being
[17:06]the primary caretakers and so she was really aware that it was completely understandable to me
[17:12]knowing that research even when I first started talking to spandurger and when she was saying so like
[17:17]in the early in her campaign like when she wasn't used now she's very used to talking to the media
[17:22]but early in her campaign when she wasn't she was like very prepared about okay when reporters
[17:26]asked me about my kids this is gonna be my answer and I'm not gonna give their ages because her
[17:31]youngest daughter was three at that point she was like I'm not gonna give their ages I'm just gonna
[17:34]say oh yes I have school aged children and just kind of leave it there and hope that it didn't
[17:39]press further and yeah I mean then I think it was maybe two months before the election she came out
[17:43]with this this ad this TV ad that featured her three daughters it opened with the three of them
[17:49]playing on the floor and saying you know my mom's like superhero and and this like really adorable
[17:55]ad and she had completely at that point embraced it and then on election night actually when she
[18:01]after she won and she was on the stage downstairs at the west and in Richmond and and she actually
[18:06]and her daughter youngest daughter Catherine kind of kept crawling up to the stage and wanted to be
[18:10]next to mom and knew it was really exciting and finally Abigail just picked her up and kind of put her
[18:15]on her hip and just kept going and the women in the room went wild and it was really this emotional
[18:21]moment because the power of that right the power of seeing a woman who who's going to represent you
[18:29]and that her life actually looks like your life that she's juggling the things you're juggling too
[18:34]I think their the impact of that is so so huge and we just don't see it enough and I love in that
[18:40]moment how you wrote how she gave she you said something like she gave her husband one of those looks
[18:44]like you're doing this wrong like let me just take the yeah well that's like of the risk right
[18:47]and you want to know that sort of like no one can see us because we're but like this that like
[18:52]that's like just give me the kid give me the kid give him to me you know that kind of thing
[18:56]and I think that's so recognizable but yeah I mean there was this transformation and that was
[19:01]just sort of one example of how when you have so many more women running and then 2018 a lot
[19:06]of the women who were running for office had kids so it normalized it you know there's Luber Gretchen
[19:12]Shirley who ran for Congress out on Long Island she didn't end up winning her election but she did
[19:18]have two toddlers when she was running and people would say you know like the advice used to be
[19:24]like don't bring your kids to campaign events like you know like it's if you don't want to like
[19:30]overdo it with the mom thing and she was like I don't know I got I have to bring my kid to campaign
[19:34]events like my babysitter canceled babysitters or $22 an hour like this is too expensive and
[19:39]this is just how it has to be she actually successfully petitioned the FEC and was able to change
[19:47]campaign finance law so that candidates can use campaign funds to pay for childcare which is
[19:52]something that both men and women benefit from right so a lot of dads running for office too
[19:57]like now that helps their families but of course it really is
[20:00]the game changer for women.
[20:01]For people who need help paying for child care,
[20:02]one thing you can do is run forever off,
[20:06]get donations, hey, for your babysitter.
[20:08]This is a great loophole for you.
[20:10]Yeah, but really again, I think it was just so,
[20:14]I loved that, and I loved that, that's in the book,
[20:16]but I loved that because I think again shows women
[20:19]paving the way for other women behind them
[20:21]and just creating this real change.
[20:23]I mean, our whole system has really been designed
[20:27]by men for men and so to see women
[20:29]disrupting that was great.
[20:31]And I also wanted to be able to show
[20:32]how are they disrupting it and just changing
[20:35]that conversation about this is what it looks like
[20:37]to be a candidate and this is who I am.
[20:39]And you're gonna see my kids and because I have kids
[20:42]and that is also part of what I'm bringing to the table.
[20:45]It speaks also to one of the big things
[20:48]that helped women win in 2018 was that they were so authentic.
[20:51]And there was, I think, this feeling of just,
[20:54]there was a lot of urgency to running.
[20:56]I think people felt like a very big shift
[20:59]had happened politically in our country
[21:01]and that we were going off the rails
[21:03]and there was this feeling of I just have to get in this
[21:06]because I feel like I could be doing better.
[21:09]You know, I don't think it's just in politics,
[21:11]the shift to authenticity.
[21:13]I mean, I feel like in a lot of different spheres
[21:15]and industries, I feel like bringing your kids in
[21:18]is sort of getting more acceptable in a way
[21:20]than it used to be.
[21:21]Yeah.
[21:22]And especially from the point of view of women,
[21:23]I mean, I think pretending like everything's
[21:25]under control and whatever, like, I don't know.
[21:28]I feel like kids in the back of conference calls
[21:30]and, you know, I'm sorry.
[21:32]I don't know.
[21:32]I just feel like all of that is now sort of,
[21:35]you know, there's such a huge shift,
[21:37]like women in the workplace, whatever.
[21:38]And now it's like, not that it's calming down,
[21:41]but it's like, okay, well, we have to find a way
[21:43]to make this work without like pretending
[21:44]that we don't have kids.
[21:45]Right, exactly.
[21:47]So I feel like it's not just in this industry necessarily,
[21:50]but this is how it's reflected in this.
[21:51]Right, this whole country came out in the political sphere
[21:54]for sure.
[21:55]I think you're absolutely right, like people really want
[21:57]to feel a genuine connection these days.
[21:59]And it used to be, I mean, even if we're just
[22:02]talking about politics, it used to be that everything
[22:04]was kind of filtered through the media
[22:06]and now they're social media.
[22:08]And you can have your Instagram and kind of show
[22:10]whatever side of yourself that you want to.
[22:12]As you can across industries,
[22:14]you see this with celebrities now too.
[22:16]So it used to be celebrities were really relying
[22:18]on like the celebrity profile and everything else.
[22:20]And now they can kind of create their own image
[22:23]narratives online.
[22:25]Good or bad, though?
[22:26]Yeah, good or bad.
[22:27]And this is not always such a good thing.
[22:28]But yes, it is a thing.
[22:30]After doing all this research and reporting,
[22:34]would you run for office?
[22:36]Yeah, I don't know.
[22:37]I guess I would never say never, but no.
[22:39]I mean, that's not something that I went into this as that
[22:42]has never been like an aspiration of mine.
[22:45]I think writing this book, I've been a journalist for 14 years.
[22:50]I want to do justice to these women's stories.
[22:53]If I can, through this book, do that.
[22:56]And then perhaps also inspire other women
[22:58]who might be interested in running or get women who maybe
[23:01]aren't as politically active right now,
[23:03]but are curious about how to step into that,
[23:05]whether it's as a candidate or an advocate or organizer
[23:09]or whatever it may be, then I feel like that might be
[23:12]a good use of my skill set toward this goal of getting
[23:15]more women into office and having better representation.
[23:18]But no, I mean, it's not some like aspiration
[23:20]that I've personally had.
[23:22]Do you think that the upside of it is worth everything?
[23:26]I won't say the downside, but all the work and the exhaustion
[23:29]and the being in the public eye.
[23:31]I mean, there's a lot.
[23:32]You have to put up with to give yourself
[23:38]in this way to be a service to your country.
[23:39]And there's a lot of baggage seeing it all unfold.
[23:44]Like, would you tell a close friend to it?
[23:46]Like, what's your inside scoop here?
[23:47]And someone's thinking, like, yes, I really
[23:50]want to do on passion.
[23:50]I want to help, but can I, whatever, what do you think?
[23:55]So Catalina Cruz has maybe the best answer
[23:58]that I've heard to this question.
[23:59]So I'm going to quote her.
[24:01]She says, if you're going to get,
[24:04]if you want to run for office, that is great.
[24:07]But you shouldn't be doing it because it's
[24:09]a next step in your career.
[24:11]You shouldn't do it because it feels like it might be glamorous
[24:17]or it might elevate you in some way.
[24:20]You should run for office if you want to serve.
[24:23]It's about service.
[24:25]So if that is in your heart and that motivates you
[24:28]and compels you, absolutely.
[24:30]Because you don't, what we know now
[24:32]is that you don't have to have everything
[24:33]that I think a lot of women have always thought you need, right?
[24:36]You don't have to have the most powerful network.
[24:38]You don't have to have the richest friends.
[24:40]You don't have to have the long political resume.
[24:43]I mean, there are ways to run for office
[24:44]and be really successful without those things.
[24:47]And so I'm glad that through this book, too,
[24:50]you can really see how women did it at various levels
[24:53]of office and not just for congress,
[24:54]but for state offices as well.
[24:56]I feel like this is why there was that sort of movement
[24:59]just for a minute of maybe Oprah would run?
[25:00]Do you remember that?
[25:01]Yes, I do, right.
[25:02]And it's like, oh, great.
[25:04]I'll vote for her.
[25:05]Like, it doesn't matter.
[25:06]Like, you want someone you can look up to and you respect.
[25:08]And I feel like if you're smart enough, you figure it out.
[25:10]But I feel like that's the way people think
[25:12]about elected officials, right?
[25:14]It's not glamorous, right?
[25:16]So I think, and I thought about this a lot
[25:18]when I was writing the book, we typically
[25:21]get to see sort of this thin slice of what it is to run for office.
[25:24]So we see candidates at events.
[25:26]We might see videos of them on the debate stage
[25:29]with the lights and they're at the podium,
[25:31]or we see them when they win and they're on the stage again.
[25:35]And that's great.
[25:36]But that's such a small piece of what this is.
[25:39]I mean, it is not glamorous.
[25:41]Again, when I say, when I met,
[25:43]the first time I interviewed Abigah Spammerger in person,
[25:45]we were in a messy playroom in her house
[25:48]with her kids downstairs.
[25:50]Catalina Cruz and I met at a coffee shop.
[25:52]I mean, Ana Escamani and I were out.
[25:54]I was eight months pregnant.
[25:55]I was down in Florida with her.
[25:56]And it was like, high 80s.
[25:58]And we were canvassing and walking around her district.
[26:01]Awful.
[26:01]It was an adventure.
[26:02]Eight months pregnant.
[26:03]Hot Florida, like having to do anything
[26:06]that involves leaving your house.
[26:07]She was this week because she kept giving me water.
[26:09]And it was very patient when I had to keep finding bathrooms.
[26:12]But I think that I was in Memphis.
[26:15]In the middle, actually, I've completely,
[26:17]the first time I was with London Lamar,
[26:19]we were, it was like, the grass was frozen in Memphis.
[26:22]It was just this, it was so, so cold
[26:25]and driving around with her.
[26:26]And you really do see that this isn't for the faint of heart.
[26:30]I mean, running for office,
[26:32]I'm sure there's going to be a lot of women
[26:33]who are inspired by the success that women had in 2018.
[26:36]And that's a really great thing.
[26:37]But I hope, you know, with the book,
[26:39]I really wanted to show, I didn't want to do this book
[26:42]that was sort of like, raw, raw, women running.
[26:44]Like, it's so great.
[26:46]I was, it is great.
[26:48]But I also wanted to show really that gritty reality
[26:50]of what it looks like.
[26:51]It should be called like ultra-marathoning for office.
[26:53]Not running, right?
[26:54]Because it's like a, you have to be like a triathlete.
[26:57]You can't just like, saunter.
[26:59]This isn't the story of saunter.
[27:00]No, they're out of saunter.
[27:01]You know, like you are in it, like crawling,
[27:04]like what's that race with the military
[27:06]when you're like on your hands.
[27:07]No, like a ton of saunter.
[27:08]Yeah, ton of saunter.
[27:09]I'm really running raw,
[27:10]because it's like a tough mother of a career, right?
[27:12]You have to like get in it, and yeah.
[27:14]I mean, then there's very little sleep.
[27:15]I mean, you're constantly doing events.
[27:17]You have to be the most effective way to reach voters
[27:20]is to be face-to-face with them.
[27:21]Like you are not going to win on social media,
[27:24]no matter how great your posts are, whatever.
[27:25]You have to get out there.
[27:26]You have to knock doors, knocking doors,
[27:29]what does that mean?
[27:30]You're going to have people say really bad things to you.
[27:32]Sometimes they're going to slam a door in your face.
[27:34]I was at an emergency in America boot camp.
[27:35]It was sort of a training for women
[27:38]who were planning to run for office.
[27:40]We were down in Atlanta,
[27:41]and some of the advice they were getting
[27:43]was literally what to do if someone pulls a gun on you.
[27:46]I mean, this is, it's no joke, right?
[27:48]And then fundraising.
[27:49]I mean, the realities of fundraising
[27:51]when you are a first-time candidate,
[27:53]it's not just like, oh, I'm going to like,
[27:56]read an email and people are going to max out
[27:59]their donations to me, and that's going to be great.
[28:01]No, that's not what it looks like.
[28:03]It's sitting down with your phone,
[28:05]contacting every single person you know.
[28:07]Like imagine asking people you haven't seen in 10 years,
[28:10]or like your college roommate's friend,
[28:12]or your ex-boyfriend, or whatever it is,
[28:15]to donate to your campaign.
[28:16]Asking people for money is a challenge.
[28:20]Women have, they're doing it, they're overcoming it,
[28:22]but I think especially for women,
[28:24]we know that that's been something
[28:25]that's incredibly uncomfortable.
[28:27]And what they have to remember is
[28:28]you're not asking for it for yourself,
[28:29]you're asking for it for your campaign.
[28:31]But I did have, I mean, there were moments,
[28:33]I was told when I, before I went to the boot camp,
[28:34]it was like, when we do the fundraising,
[28:36]because they really make them make the calls right there.
[28:38]It's not just practice.
[28:40]They were like, watch the bathroom,
[28:41]watch how many women will go in the bathroom,
[28:45]because it's so intimidating.
[28:48]And sure enough, I saw that.
[28:50]I mean, spammer even saw, I wasn't at her training,
[28:52]but she said that she went in the bathroom and cried,
[28:55]because the woman next to her was like,
[28:56]oh, you know, I'm going to make this,
[28:59]well, I have an event with Senator Duckworth
[29:02]and I'm in touch with Wendy Davis
[29:03]and we're going to do all these things.
[29:05]And spammer goes sitting there and like,
[29:07]oh my God, she knows these people.
[29:09]I don't know anyone.
[29:10]Like, I don't know anybody.
[29:11]Like, what am I doing here?
[29:12]I'm such like a, like, I'm, I'm so far behind,
[29:16]like, and she went in the bathroom and cried.
[29:17]And there was a former congresswoman
[29:21]who, you know, from a different generation,
[29:23]who came in and got saw her crying
[29:26]and Abigail was like, she just gave me this look
[29:28]of like, total disgust and this awful, awful feeling.
[29:34]Of course, Abigail ended up being an amazing fundraiser
[29:37]and, you know, won her election and did very, very well.
[29:40]So she figured that out.
[29:43]So you're clearly like a brilliant reporter
[29:45]and like, you wrote about it beautifully woven the narrative,
[29:48]like it read, like, you know, like page turning type
[29:52]of narrative woven in with a lot of facts
[29:55]and things like, didn't necessarily know.
[29:57]So you finish this.
[29:58]Are you going to keep,
[30:00]wearing political stuff, or are you switching your, you know, putting your hooks into a totally
[30:06]different topic now? What is your next move aside from trying to get your kid not to throw his?
[30:10]Yeah, I'm not to get his not to throw a shot. So yes, I mean, I actually have this call of my
[30:17]agent yesterday and we were talking about it. I think that right now, you know, I didn't even
[30:21]really, we didn't even finish the last, the thing with doing a book like this is that the timeline
[30:27]is incredibly brutal. So it was cheers of reporting, but I only had after the election when I
[30:33]knew really what I was writing. So I had written a few chapters, some of which didn't even make
[30:37]it into the book. I had written a few chapters, but really without knowing, okay, is this going
[30:42]to be this really inspiring, amazing story of all these women who won, or are these women all
[30:46]going to lose? And I'm going to have to do this book about what went wrong and where we go from
[30:50]here. And I didn't know the answer to that until election night. So I had this like eight week period
[30:55]that was really intense and we wrote it and then, or I wrote it. I'm talking about my editor who
[31:00]I was constantly going back and forth. But I had this eight week period where I wrote the book,
[31:04]most of the book. And then there was like, I think we did edits through February in March.
[31:10]I hired an independent fact checker. So there was a fact checking process. And then we didn't do
[31:16]the final line edits on the book until June. Then there's this big sort of promotion and press
[31:23]that you spend a lot of time on. And the lead up to the book, the book came out last week of August.
[31:27]And I've just been, since then, I'm getting approached now to do some articles, stuff on this topic,
[31:32]but then also just talking about the book and being out there. So I really even haven't had that
[31:37]second of just, okay, like, what is my next thing and like, what am I going to do? So I think I'm going
[31:43]to, I have some deadlines right now. So I'm going to kind of get through those. And then my plan
[31:47]is to maybe take like two weeks off in December and just like, you know, see my kid and spend some time
[31:54]just letting my mind kind of wander a bit and think about what that next project might be.
[31:58]I didn't mean to put you on. Next book title, let's do it on my desk in two weeks. Thank you very
[32:06]much. Yes, it was like, oh, so like what ideas do you have? And I was like, my brain is saturated.
[32:12]Like a book like this. I mean, this was so much reporting. It was really two years of that.
[32:16]And then plus the writing process and then the promotion process. And there hasn't been a break
[32:20]yet in it. So December will really be my first break. So yeah, you know, if you need, you just
[32:26]have to regroup. You need the thing set to do you have any advice to aspiring authors, especially
[32:31]in that kind of journalistic reporting reportage, you would say type of book versus like, versus,
[32:37]you know, fiction, but this particular type. Yeah. Or just whatever you want to say, whatever I
[32:42]want to say, I guess gosh, do I? I think obviously it's important to be passionate about the topic.
[32:48]I cannot imagine having worked on this for this period of time and with this much.
[32:55]I had to take a look at how I can say this. It doesn't sound. I mean, so many women go back to
[32:59]work after having a kid. I had my first kid throughout, like I probably know four months after I
[33:03]got the book deal. And then didn't know how sick I would be and didn't know was like incredibly naive
[33:10]about what the aftermath of that would be like. But it was primary season. Like, I gave birth
[33:15]in the middle of primary season. There was no way given the book that I was doing that I could
[33:19]sit out. And so I think it was about three weeks after I gave birth. I kind of went back into
[33:24]the reporting and the writing again. And I can't, and it took me away from myself. I probably
[33:29]wouldn't do it again that way to be honest with you. I think I would have just taken a good six weeks
[33:34]and really just let myself have that time with my son. But I don't think that I could have. And
[33:41]I think with any job that you're doing, there's always that personal sacrifice and just giving
[33:45]up something that we're giving up a certain time or of yourself. It was worth it to me in that
[33:51]I was so passionate about this project. These women were so incredible to me what they were doing
[33:56]was so gutsy to me. And I just think if you're going to do a book, you obviously need to like
[34:03]really, really believe in it. I think there's some books out there and I'm not talking about any
[34:07]book in particular. But there are these books that kind of come out that just feel like the person
[34:12]wanted to do a book. And it was just like, it's some idea that they've packaged and it comes out
[34:18]and it's, you know, whatever. But I really believed in this. It was worth going back after three
[34:24]weeks to me. And so I guess like if you're going to do this kind of book and you're going to do
[34:29]something that is a really long reporting process and that you're going to have to be in the weeds
[34:34]with for a long time, it's obviously important to do something that's close to your heart.
[34:39]Otherwise I would say just drink a lot of coffee. I was actually at one point. I was breastfeeding
[34:44]my son and I got to a point. I stopped breastfeeding him at six months and I was in the thick of the
[34:50]book writing man. I think I had about four weeks until my deadline. And you know kids at that age
[34:55]don't really sleep through the night. So like my husband and I were like up in the night. And we
[34:59]were every morning started at like 4 a.m. and that our day would start at 4 a.m. and it was just a
[35:03]really wild time. And I was like, I'm not going to survive this without coffee. And I did kind of get to
[35:08]a point where I was like, this is way too much coffee. And I can't be breastfeeding anymore. And I
[35:13]really I stopped breastfeeding. I just couldn't if I had to like give on some of those things that
[35:17]maybe I wouldn't have. I can't believe you made it six months without coffee. It was kind of just
[35:21]no, no, no, I don't know. Well, let me clarify. I would allow myself like a latte a day, which is
[35:25]completely fine by the way. Like do what you have to do. But no, I mean at that point like to get through
[35:30]it was like it was like a four latte. It was a four coffee a day just to kind of make it through
[35:35]those sort of 14 hour writing days. So yeah, I mean, women do a lot more. I mean, there's I mean,
[35:42]I'm incredibly fortunate. Like there's women who are forced to go back to work and who work on their
[35:47]feet for 12 hour shifts after they give birth. So I mean, no, I'm by no means special. But it
[35:53]definitely just personally going through it. I was like, oh yeah, this is this is tough. Like this
[35:57]is what people talk about. And you know, it's it's no joke. No joke. Well, thank you for going through
[36:04]it. And thanks to your son for sparing a little of you so that you could report then and produce
[36:09]this magnificent book that's really important and inspiring and really awesome. Oh, thanks so much.
[36:14]This was so fun. This episode has been sponsored by Book of the Month Club. Book of the Month.com
[36:21]and your code Zibi to get your first book for $5. Thanks for listening to Moms Don't Have Time
[36:25]to Read Books. You can follow me on Instagram at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Thanks so much
[36:31]to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon
[36:35]Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music. Thanks for listening. You
[36:40]could always email me at Zibi at Zibi Owens.com.