WEBVTT - Amanda Litman on Next Gen Leadership 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:05.280 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:10.000 Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest today is an author, 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.920 digital strategist, and the co founder and president of Run 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:19.680 for Something, an organization that recruits and supports young, diverse, 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:24.919 progressive candidates. Amanda Littman launched Run for Something in twenty seventeen. 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.280 Since then, she has helped elect more than one five 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:33.560 hundred leaders across forty nine states. Amanda Littman is also 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.239 the president of r FS Civics, a five oh one 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:41.839 c three organization dedicated to ending the char intocracy in 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:47.560 American politics. Prior to launching Run for Something, Littman built 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:51.320 a career as a digital strategist. She served as the 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:57.000 email director for Hillarby Clinton's twenty sixteen presidential campaign, Not 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:01.840 those emails. She also served as the digital director for 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:08.200 Charlie Crist's twenty fourteen Florida gubernatorial campaign, and previously worked 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:13.600 on Barack Obama's twenty twelve reelection campaign. Amanda Littman is 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.880 also the author of two books, Run for Something, a 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.600 Real Talk guide to Fixing the System Yourself, and her 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:24.400 most recent book, When We're in Charge, The Next Generation's 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:29.039 guide to leadership. Litman has become an outspoken critic of 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.959 what she calls bad Boomer leadership and is an advocate 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.679 for a new style of next gen leadership. I was 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.920 curious to hear her perspective on the boomer mentality and 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.800 what she believes sets the next generation of leaders aparts. 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.520 I find boomer leadership to do a very good foil 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:50.880 for what the next generation needs to be working against. 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:51.960 Yeah, in what way? 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:52.520 Well? 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.600 I think that there is a mentality behind Boomer leadership. 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:57.680 And I say this with all due respect too boomers 0:01:57.680 --> 0:01:59.920 two gen xers always getting mad when I leave them out. 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.480 It's classic gen ICs response. That there's a certain mentality 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.400 among a Boomer style of leadership that is very beholden 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.440 to institutions. It feels like institutions are good, will be 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:11.720 there for them, are worth engaging with, that you can 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.520 climb a career ladder. That mental health is like you know, 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.799 for weaklings, and that you should never take a day off, 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:20.440 and if you do take a day off, it's none 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:22.600 of our business what you do with it. And you 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:24.640 know you don't bring your full self to work. You 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:26.520 are a beatbop robot when you show up and you 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.040 do your job and then you leave, or alternatively, you 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:30.960 bring all of yourself to work with you and you 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.000 tell me all of your problems and all of your illnesses, 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:34.480 And I actually don't want to know any of that 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.880 compared to what I am proposing in when we're in charge, 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:40.919 which is what I call sort of next gen leadership, 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.440 which millennials gen Z but really anyone can adapt, which 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.400 is authentic but with boundaries, transparent, but understanding there are 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:53.080 limits to transparency, effective, but also not treating people like shit. 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:57.680 And I think that, especially in this particular moment, understanding 0:02:57.800 --> 0:02:59.600 that you do not have to be an asshole to 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:01.440 be a good boss and a good leader and a 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:03.880 good politician is something that we actually need to be 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:08.040 incredibly clear about and reiterate over and over and over again, 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:09.880 because if you look around the world right now, you 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.720 might come away with the misconception that you have to 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.120 be terrible to people in order to rise to the 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:16.720 tops of the latters. 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.880 Do you believe as I do, that we have the 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.680 patriarchy in charge of the country for so long now 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.840 and it hasn't been bested by some other group. What 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.359 appealed to me about your book run for something. Was 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:32.240 this idea that more and more people don't want anything 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:34.240 to do with politics. Yeah, the people that would make 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:39.280 the best senators, justices, state wide offices, nationwide offices. They 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:41.360 don't want anything to do with these recent generations. Do 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:42.120 you agree? 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:44.680 No, So run for something, which is the organization I 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.040 Run recruits and supports millennials and gen z running for 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:49.480 local office. In the last nearly ten years, we've had 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.480 more than a quarter million young people raise their hands 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.360 to say they want to run. And my favorite thing 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.720 is these are people who never thought about running for president. 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.560 They haven't planned to become United States senators and say, 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.600 we're kindergarteners. They didn't go to college majoring in political science. 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.080 They're not lawyers, they're not rich. They are totally ordinary 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.000 people who see what's happening around us and say, oh, 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.000 I actually have a responsibility and an opportunity to fix it. 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.840 And this organization has said maybe I could run for 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:15.920 office and they'll help me do it. I'm going to 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.440 consider this. I'm going to jump in. I think we're 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:20.479 at a tipping point here where to your point, there 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:22.840 is a lot of young people who see the political 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:24.640 system and say screw it. This is not for me. 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.599 But there is a group among them who are saying 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:29.440 this is for me, and I'm not going to wait 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:31.560 my turn. And I love that. 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.520 Yeah, But I look at, for example, although New York's 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:38.000 fortunes have ebbed in terms of its relevance and its place, 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.480 not it as a spawning ground for political leadership nationwide. 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:43.880 But I mean just in terms of the population has 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.880 gone down, The House delegation has gone down New York, Florida, 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.200 California is forever eclipsing us, and New York is like 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.040 the fourth most populous state now. And I say to myself, 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.400 what passes for leadership in a certain states? I look 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.039 at people who go to the Senate and the House 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.159 from certain states and I go, You've got to be 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.960 kidding me. That's the person you sent to the United 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.800 States Senate. You couldn't find somebody else, man, woman, black, white, 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:10.800 doesn't matter, whatever age, who's more dynamic than that. The 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.560 same I think is true in New York. He's been 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:14.200 there too long. 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.680 If Democrats take back the majority in the House, the 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:18.560 Speaker of the House will be from New York City. 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:20.159 And if we take back the majority in the Senate, 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.039 the majority leader will be from New York City. What 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:27.760 happens here has national ramifications and you know, Keem Jeffries. 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.040 But is Chuck Schumer our best is really? Is Chuck 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.719 shot He says, yes, I would agree with that. 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:36.200 I think that she's had her time as well well, 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.040 jilib Bren. I mean nothing wrong with them as people. 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:39.960 I'm not judging them as people. I'm just saying they've 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:41.760 been there a long time, and I'm not quite sure. 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.599 When Chuck Schumber didn't stand up to the banks during 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:46.320 the financial crisis, it was over for me. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:48.360 For me. I think part of this is that Chuck 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.159 Schumer still imagines the Republican Party as good faith operators. 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:53.520 He still sees this as a Republican Party of when 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.000 he came up in politics, where you know he and 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:57.919 others will say this too, like we're just waiting for 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.800 the fever to break. No, it is Trump Party all 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:02.960 the way down. These people do not want the government 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.080 to function. You cannot negotiate with them. 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:06.200 You're happy with the way things are. 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:08.200 They want to break it and they don't want to 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.840 put it back together. You know, Schumer has this like 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.599 shtick where he you know, he doesn't have an iPhone. 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.120 He's got a flip phone that's like his bit. I 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.840 don't find that charming. If you don't understand how people 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.640 communicate in twenty twenty six, how they're getting information, how 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.719 they consume media, how they're engaging with the world, you 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:26.400 are not well suited to lead in this moment. 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.320 Well, people told me back then, when the two thousand 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.599 and eight, when the financial crisis was They said to me, well, 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.360 you know, Schumer's the head of the DSCC, and he's 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:36.960 got to raise money, and he raises money, a lot 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:38.560 of money from these banking people, and he can't go 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.280 too hard on them because then he's going to bite 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:43.359 the hand that feeds him. For the DSc. He needs 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.560 this money. He gets to handle them very tenderly. I 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.080 want to go no, no, you don't. I wanted to 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.520 see something in which you were taking a leadership role 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.080 in posing how we got into this horrible place which 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.479 we could likely be in again. We could likely be 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.080 in again. But before you started run for something, and 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.320 before you did other work, you were involved in working 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.560 for political figures. It was Obama. But I would say 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:06.400 the one I'm more interested in for the purposes of 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.400 this podcast is Hillary, in which you had to raise 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.160 a lot of money three hundred and thirty million dollars. Yeah, 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:14.400 did you like raising money? 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:16.760 Did I like raising I liked doing email marketing because 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:18.880 it's a mix of art and science. Because it's writing, 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:21.600 it's creative, and also it's very data driven. You get 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:23.160 a chance to test things, You get a chance to 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.040 learn what people respond to and the way in which 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.240 people in many ways are animals when it comes to 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.040 marketing of like, oh, if you center of a text 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.560 to make the button bigger, more people give money. Man, 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.280 we are just so primal. But it was fun and 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.240 it was also, I hope, the hardest thing I'll ever do. 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:39.240 What way? 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.680 I worked for two years basically one hundred dollars weeks 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:45.640 in the office from seven am to two am every night, 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.920 every weekend for a mission that I genuinely believed in 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:51.320 and a candidate I really believed in. Like I thought 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:53.200 every day we were going to lock the first woman president. 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.640 So we used to get these pep talks in the 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.640 office when days are really hard about how you know, 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.880 if we didn't win, feel it would be like Nazis 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.080 wood storm the streets. There would be women would lose 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.040 their rights, the right to vote would be taken back, 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.320 like all the progress we made it be rescinded. And 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.040 it felt hyperbolic at the time, like it was just 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.679 supposed to motivate us. And you know, almost ten years later, 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:17.320 we weren't scary enough. 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:24.680 Author and co founder of Run for Something, Amanda Littman. 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.480 If you enjoy conversations with political leaders who started their 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.959 career thanks to Run for Something, check out my conversation 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:38.880 with Michigan State Senator and US Senate candidate Malory mcmurrow. 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.080 I'm used to people underestimated me. I ran in twenty 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.960 eighteen against my Republican incumbent state senator who had won 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.719 previously by sixteen points, and even local Democrats said you're 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.680 going to get destroyed. There was something really freeing about 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:54.640 not having the backing of the party and just say 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:56.920 let's just go for it and try to run a 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:58.760 campaign to really connect with people in a way that 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.480 feels different. And I beat him by four points, and 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.280 now I'm in leadership. You know, I'm responsible for an 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:07.400 eighty billion dollar state budget. I've proven that I'm a workhorse. 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:09.400 I do really well when people underestimate me. 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:15.120 To hear more of my conversation with Mallory mcmurrow, go 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:19.560 to Here's Thething dot org. After the break, Amanda Littman 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.480 shares her thoughts on the twenty twenty eight Democratic primary 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.760 and why she predicts the nominee could be someone no 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:42.800 one is talking about today. I'm Alec Baldwin and this 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:47.480 is Here's the Thing. Amanda Littman grew up in Fairfax, Virginia, 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:50.880 but it was a young Illinois senator that would ultimately 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.880 draw her to attend college in the Midwest. Littman enrolled 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.120 at Northwestern University in the hopes of being close to 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:02.840 Barack Obama's Chicago base of operations. She'd be called a 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.320 day as a high school junior in two thousand and 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.000 eight when she decided to skip a day of school 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.040 to attend a student's for Obama rally. 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:13.760 I was hooked. I wanted to be part of whatever 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.120 he was building, which is why I went to Northwestern 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:18.080 for college, because I wanted to be in Chicago when 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:20.160 he was gonna interesting. I assumed was like he's going 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.440 to win. That's an insane thing to think interesting, And 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:24.679 I want to work for his campaign, and it'll be interesting. 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.240 West because you wanted to be proximate to his work. 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:27.880 I was not a small part of it, you know. 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:30.280 I also I liked the diploma program, I liked the campus, 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.280 but I wanted to be near to Schogo Grade school. 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:34.760 When I was a senior, I got an internship on 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.520 the Obama campaign doing online fundraising, which is what I 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.679 ended up doing for Hillary in twenty sixteen. And it 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.880 was magical, like being part of that movement, and on 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.320 the inside of that felt like being part of the 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.280 best sorority or fraternity I could ever imagine. I mean, 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.160 it's how I spent my senior year of college. I'm 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:52.839 shocked they gave me a degree because all I did 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.000 was write my thesis and work on the Obama campaign. 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.160 I was there in Washington in seventy six when the 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.520 Carter Pete Ford and when to have his term. The 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:03.520 entire period of time I was there, this is back 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:05.440 in the old Washington when they were burning the Shah 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.719 of Iran and effigy and Lafayette Park right outside the 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.240 White House gates. Who's going to come forth two years 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.640 from now? You say, over sixty, Gavin Newsom is in 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:17.360 over sixty. Is he cut it for you or no. 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.760 I think that there is going to be a very crowded, chaotic, 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.480 interesting primary. It's going to make us want to throw 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.880 our phones into the river. It's going to be infuriating, 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.680 as primaries are because ultimately most of us have the 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.640 same values, Like we generally agree on ninety eight percent 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.280 of things. The two percent we don't is where it 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.480 and it gets like mean and personal and nasty. It's 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:40.640 why primary is. It's like a fight with your family. 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:41.880 It sucks. 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:43.440 I don't know it's going to be, and I find 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.920 that to be actually very freeing. It could feel very scary. 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.640 But I think this is the first open primary really 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.079 since I've ever gotten a chance to vote, I mean 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.120 even twenty twenty, like Biden sort of came in as 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.439 the polling leader and ended with the nomination. This is 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.920 the first time where there's no clear frontrunner. It could 0:11:59.920 --> 0:12:02.160 be anyone, and I would say, you know, fifty to 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:04.280 fifty chance it's someone nobody's talking about right now. 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:06.680 Yeah, whit Mari was keen on I really I thought 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:08.600 she was effective and smart and all these other things 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:10.480 and not just a woman for a woman's sake. I mean, 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.640 I thought I'd like to see a woman become the 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:16.560 president because a woman was voted the president, I believe, 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:19.040 and I think where we would be now is very 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:20.840 different from where we are now if she had won. 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.120 When she lost, what did you attribute it to? 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.719 I thought it was one part, many parts, obviously sexism, 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.679 obviously a twenty year campaign to drag down her reputation. 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.440 I think there was obviously foreign interference. I think Trump 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:39.680 tapped into something that had been building since the Tea Party. 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.760 I think you know, the final ten days of the 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.640 call Me letter, and then you know Anthony Wiener and 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:48.880 the emails, all of that. Talk about the emails, I 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:50.760 can't talk for it makes me want to. You know, 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.960 I was Hillary Clinton's email director and I so we 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.199 have a sweatsheh. We had team sweatshirts for in the campaign, 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.800 says Hillary Clinton's other emails because I always had to 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.040 clarify not the ones they're talking out on Fox News, 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:02.720 like that's not the ones I'm in charge of. 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:03.720 It was. 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.520 I mean, I think it was so many things, and yes, 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:08.960 of course the campaign made some poor decisions and the 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.800 process too. Every losing campaign does the same way that 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.439 every winning campaign also makes some bad decisions in retrospect. 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:18.320 But we came so close close. It is not close, 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.320 it's not winning, but we came so close. 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:22.640 It was tough. It was so tough because what a 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:24.000 great president she would have been. 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.320 She would have been phenomenal. Although I say, my husband 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.920 often reminds me, had she won, the Republican Party, had 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:31.320 they controlled the House, would have tried to impeachure by 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.520 like noon the day after inauguration. So what would you 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:36.880 know President Tim Kane have been like? Is an interesting 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.000 question to marinate on. Yeah, that's a good pob and 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.680 I find that version of the alternate history to be 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:43.520 like a little soothing. It was never going to be 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:44.040 easy for. 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.760 The first It's interesting you say that about no clear 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.560 front runner for twenty twenty eight, and I agree with you, 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.480 even though Newsom's name is thrown around a lot, and 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.600 I've met him a few times and I'm not quite 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.199 sure how I feel about him as president because I mean, again, 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:58.760 I look at the job now, one think it's almost undoable. 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.600 This marketing involved, there's image making that's involved. 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.320 Well, it's basically a nationwide branding campaign. That's what a 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.640 presidential campaign is at this point, it's a branding campaign 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:08.480 and policies are a part of that. But it's policies 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:10.760 and the way that they contribute to the brand of 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.240 the person and how you can make people understand and 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:15.760 see themselves in those policies. It's not most people don't 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.240 actually have a strong position on most issues. They take 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.160 their cues from the leaders and how the leaders make 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.160 them feel. And yes, part is an affiliation and how 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:26.560 the person communicates and the story that they tell, and 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:28.840 of course their identity like all of that sort of 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:32.320 play is a role here. So just to say there's 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.000 like a broader internal Democratic party debate about oh we 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.200 need a progressive or a moderate or that's not the 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.840 access upon which people are operating anymore. They want someone 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:42.760 who is willing to fight, and who is authentic and 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:44.080 knows who they are and what they believe. 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:46.080 Someone who's willing to go down in flames in their 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.080 first term risk a second term. Nothing more important to me. 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:50.480 If I were a president, sit there and I go, 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:51.880 I'm going to do this first term like it's the 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:53.840 second term, got it. I'm not going to throw everything 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:55.560 to the wind and see, I want to win. I 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.960 want us to accomplish these things environmentally and blah blah blah. Now, 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.880 the idea of coaxing people, of summoning people to want 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:05.000 to run for office themselves and get into the whole 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:07.760 civics thing about that is something that's not new. I mean, 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:09.360 when I was in college and I was in the 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.920 Young Democrats of g W and blah blah blah. Everything 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:13.680 was about when you leave here, when you leave here 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.560 with your degree or your professional degree, are you going 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:17.800 to go home and run for office? What are you 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.160 going to do? And you have formed your variant of that, 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:22.960 how did you get involved with that and why? 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.080 So About a week after election Day in twenty sixteen, 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:27.760 I'd started hearing from people I'd gone to high school 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.360 in college with, Hey, Amanda, I'm a public school teacher 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.280 in Chicago. If Trump can be president, it seems like 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.680 fucking anybody can do this. What do I do if 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:36.360 I want to run for office? They keep cutting our 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:38.640 budgets and I want to fight back. And at the time, 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.080 this is November twenty sixteen, I didn't have anywhere you 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.120 could send them, like the state Party would probably not 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:45.160 answer your emails. If you're a twenty six year old 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.160 public school teacher. That wasn't what the DNZ did. They're 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:50.920 just like there wasn't an on ramp. And the more 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:52.240 that I thought about that, and the more that I 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:54.360 kept getting these emails and seeing it online, the more 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:56.360 I realized, like, that's actually a problem we need to 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.480 solve if we're going to fix a whole bunch of 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.680 other problems in the Democratic Party and our democracy. So 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:02.960 I reached out to a whole bunch of people with 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.480 an idea, what if we start an organization to solve this. 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.040 I am unemployed and very sad, and with like a 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.760 coping mechanism in the form of an interesting project. One 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.400 of those folks became my co founder, Ross Morales Rocqutto. 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:17.640 We wrote a plan, we built a website. Hayes no 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.320 Hayes wife and I worked together on the campaign, so 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.120 she connected me with him, and he'd been like chewing 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:24.480 on a very similar idea for a little while. He 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.320 was managing a congressional campaign in California at the time, 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.880 and I was sad at home. So we wrote a plan, 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.360 we built the website, and we launched Run for Something 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.560 on Trump's first inauguration day. We thought this is going 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:38.080 to be small. We're going to get a hundred people 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:40.240 in the first year. This is going to be my hobby. 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:42.320 We had a thousand people signed up in the first week. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:43.760 What do you attribute that to? 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.040 Partially it was the right idea for the right time. Partially, 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:49.200 we you know, I'm a digital strategist by trade. We 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.280 built a very easy way for people to engage. The 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.720 branding was good, the story was good, that the you know, 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:57.040 the vibe was good. But mostly I think people were 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.320 hungry to do something and they wanted to do something 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.400 they felt like could matter. You know, we had eighty 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:05.520 thousand people raise their hands in twenty twenty five. We 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:07.560 had more people sign up in the last twelve months 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:09.960 than we did in the entirety of Trump's first term. 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.159 They're looking around and saying, there aren't leaders here that 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:14.760 are doing the work I see that needs to be done. 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.240 There aren't people who excite me. My community is struggling. 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:20.800 If I don't run for office, if I don't get 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.040 involved in this way, nothing is going to get better. 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:26.600 I find it to be so inspiring. It's I've been 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:28.359 able to do this work for almost last decade, and 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:31.280 that every week, and we have elections basically every week, 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:33.240 and every week we win, and then every day I 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.120 get in my inbox the stories of the people we've 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.040 helped elect who are cutting the cost of insulin, getting 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.000 free lunch for kids in schools, building more housing, you know, 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:45.120 passing gun safety laws in unusual places. It's just it's 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.959 a reminder that actually democracy is good and government can 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:49.439 work when you get really good people in it. 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.280 So Daniel Squadron and Melissa Walker from State's Project came 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.640 to take the show recently, and I'd gone to some 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.400 salons of there it's at somebody's home in my building 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:00.199 once and then i just went to another one that 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.119 they had, and I'm very admiring of the two of them. 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:03.879 And do you see some kind of overlap with the 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:04.520 work we do. 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.000 We work closely with them and with every other organization 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:08.920 that works on these state and local offices, because we 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:11.760 only work with people running for a state house, state senate, 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.600 city council, school board, library board, American River Flood Control 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.440 District trustee, like the kinds of local positions that make 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:20.000