-So, in the last election,
you were Hillary Clinton's e-mail director.
Is that correct? -Yes, although I feel like
I always have to specify not the e-mails she sent.
-Right. [ Light laughter ]
-The ones that you might've gotten in your inbox.
-Sort of fundraising e-mails. -Mm-hmm.
-So, obviously, you were very invested
in the outcome of this election.
It was not the outcome you were covetous of,
and you started to run for something immediately, yes?
-Pretty much. So, election day comes and goes.
I am devastated -- crying, angry,
puking out of a cab in Brooklyn somewhere.
-That's happened before.
You don't have to beat yourself up.
-As we all do. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
-I start hearing from friends from high school and college
reach out to me to say,
"Hey, I'm thinking about running for office,
because if this idiot can be president,
why can't I run for city council?"
-One of the positives. Yes. -Mm-hmm.
[ Cheers and applause ]
"What do I do?"
I didn't have an answer for them.
There was nowhere you could go if you wanted to run for office.
So, I reached out to an incredible co-founder,
Ross Morales Rocketto, and we've talked and talked and talked,
and wrote a website and a plan.
And then we launched it on inauguration day.
-And you've had incredible feedback already.
People have been signing up. People have been running.
And this -- It should be --
I want to make it clear -- These are small offices, too.
This is just as important,
but people are running for offices at every level.
-So, when we launched, we thought we'd get 100 people
who want to run in the first year.
Instead, almost 19,000 people have raised their hands
to tell us they want to run. -That's fantastic.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Yeah.
It is so exciting.
-You know, obviously, to some degree,
that last election was very hard not to separate the idea
that you had a white man running against a white woman.
-Mm-hmm. -And then we see
during these Kavanaugh hearings, you have one side
is 11 white men that actually have to bring in
a white woman as proxy.
Is that the sort of thing that is inspiring
so many women and people of color?
'Cause that is who you're trying to convince
to get into the game here.
-It's exactly that kind of thing.
You see 11 white men questioning or being afraid to question
one woman who's gone through something
so painful and so horrible,
how can you not want to replace them all
with someone who looks more like me or more like her?
-Yeah! [ Cheers and applause ]
-Do you --
You know, and to some degree, you know, this requires
some encouragement of people
that haven't been in this arena before.
Do you feel that, you know, in your interactions with white men
that they need less encouragement?
-So, there's this old saying --
"Women need to be asked seven times to run for office.
Men will just tell you what they're gonna run for" --
and that has been my experience going around the country.
You know, it is amazing how many women,
especially women of color, will come up to me and say,
"You know, I didn't know someone like me could do this,
but hearing the stories of your candidates
who have run and won or run and lost
have made me realize, oh!
People like me can run for city council
or state legislature and actually make a difference."
-Well -- This will sound like a joke,
but I really don't mean it as such,
because you already referenced it.
The fact that Donald Trump is president does sort of --
Ultimately, you realize,
"Oh, you don't need a lot of experience."
-No. [ Laughter ]
-You really don't. -Mnh-mnh.
-Well, and I think it's important to keep in mind
there's a difference between --
You don't need a lot of experience
to be a school board member.
What you do need is to care.
You need to have passion.
You need to want to solve a problem.
You need to be willing to learn and to listen.
You don't need a long résumé,
and you don't need to be a policy wonk.
-What about the backgrounds of the people
that are running for office?
Have you found people from eclectic backgrounds
over the course of this past couple of years?
-Our candidates range from students to teachers
to moms to artists to a battle rapper,
a Chipotle manager, social workers, artists,
a rodeo athlete -- competitive --
-Wow. -Competitive barrel racer.
That's what it is. Thank you.
-A competitive barrel racer? -Yeah.
Her name Barbara Bessette.
She's running for Montana state legislature.
Her big focus is on combating the drug crisis in Montana,
but in her spare time, she and her horse, Macy,
compete in rodeo sports. -Well, that's fantastic.
-It's the coolest! [ Applause ]
-You know, one of the things --
I do think Donald Trump used this to some degree,
which is, ultimately, people don't like politicians.
So, when you run for office, the fact that
you're not a politician is often very helpful,
and you've helped people --
I said it before -- at every level.
You actually helped a candidate who wanted to run for coroner,
which I will admit I did not know was an elected official.
-So, fun fact.
1,300 counties or so across the country elect coroners.
We had a candidate in, I believe,
Jefferson County, Colorado, named Dana Hutcherson,
whose primary issue was bringing equality
to trans people after death,
because they were being misgendered
in their death certificates,
which you can understand the ramifications of that.
-Mm-hmm. -What an incredible opportunity
to make progressive values really tangible in a local way.
Plus, what a cool race to be involved in.
-Yeah. -That really matters to people.
-That's fantastic. And, obviously, you know,
the outcome in 2016 was not the one you were looking for,
but it's really impressive what you're doing, moving forward.
-Thank you.
-And we're really lucky to have you doing it.
Thank you so much for being here.
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