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That's the Ticket Episode 2: Paving the Way · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome back to That's the Ticket, a Pod Save America
0:22
Speaker 1: miniseries where we explore what goes into the vice presidential
0:24
Speaker 1: selection process. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:26
Speaker 2: And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.
0:28
Speaker 1: On last week's episode, we dug into the vetting and
0:30
Speaker 1: announcement process and why everything is kept so secret. If
0:33
Speaker 1: you missed that episode, you can go take a listen
0:35
Speaker 1: in the Positive America feed, which you obviously know where
0:37
Speaker 1: to find since you're listening to this right now. Today,
0:40
Speaker 1: we're going to focus on Joe Biden's announcement that he
0:42
Speaker 1: will pick a woman, how it has changed the vice
0:43
Speaker 1: presidential selection process, and how the candidacies of Geraldine Ferraro
0:47
Speaker 1: and Sarah Palin got us to where we are today.
0:49
Speaker 1: We are also going to talk to New York Magazine
0:51
Speaker 1: and the cut writer Rebecca Traister about Biden's decision and
0:54
Speaker 1: what obstacles the nominee will face from the media. Next week,
0:57
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about how the protests over systemic
0:59
Speaker 1: racism and the coronavirus pandemic are impacting Biden's decision-making process,
1:04
Speaker 1: as well as the push for Biden to choose a
1:06
Speaker 1: black woman as his running mate. I'll also talk to
1:08
Speaker 1: FiveThirtyEight writer Perry Bacon Jr. about what the polling is
1:10
Speaker 1: telling us about who Biden should choose and the impact
1:13
Speaker 1: of past vice presidential selections on the election. Alyssa, before
1:17
Speaker 1: we get into it, how are you doing?
1:18
Speaker 2: Buddy, I'm great. How are you?
1:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, all things considered, I'm pretty good. How
1:24
Speaker 1: do you feel now that we have one of these
1:25
Speaker 1: under our belt?
1:28
Speaker 2: I'm going to be very vulnerable right now and say
1:30
Speaker 2: that we got such extraordinarily great feedback that people said
1:33
Speaker 2: they didn't know how we could top the first episode.
1:36
Speaker 2: And so I've been thinking about it a lot. So
1:38
Speaker 2: I'm bringing my A game today.
1:40
Speaker 1: Do you feel a lot of pressure?
1:41
Speaker 2: I do feel pressure. I don't want to let our
1:44
Speaker 2: fans who care about the vice presidential selection process down.
1:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is, you know, sequels are hard is what
1:52
Speaker 1: I would say. So everyone keep that in mind. Could
1:58
Speaker 1: be Godfather 2, could be Beverly Hills Cop 2.
2:01
Speaker 3: We don't know.
2:01
Speaker 2: Or it could be Godfather 3.
2:02
Speaker 1: That, that word, that was my joke for the next
2:04
Speaker 1: episode of our, because this is really a trilogy, but.
2:07
Speaker 2: I bet you didn't think I knew though, that Godfather
2:09
Speaker 2: 3 won Oscars. I, I.
2:12
Speaker 1: You know what? I did think you knew that.
2:15
Speaker 3: Okay.
2:16
Speaker 1: All right. Let's get, now let's, now let's really get
2:18
Speaker 1: into it. Now that we have this fascinating, uh, an
2:21
Speaker 1: infectious small talk out of the way. Um, Back in March,
2:25
Speaker 1: right before the entire country went into coronavirus lockdown, March
2:29
Speaker 1: was three months ago. Feels like three decades ago. The
2:32
Speaker 1: DNC held its final presidential primary debate between Joe Biden
2:35
Speaker 1: and Bernie Sanders. On stage, Joe Biden made a historic
2:38
Speaker 1: commitment and provided the most memorable moment of the night.
2:41
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
2:42
Speaker 4: If I'm elected president, my cabinet, my administration will look
2:46
Speaker 4: like the country. And I commit that I will, in fact,
2:49
Speaker 4: appoint a, I'll pick a woman to be vice president.
2:53
Speaker 4: There are a number of women who are qualified to
2:54
Speaker 4: be president tomorrow. I would pick a woman to be
2:57
Speaker 4: my vice president.
2:58
Speaker 1: Alyssa, I want to separate two things. The decision to
3:05
Speaker 1: put a woman on the ticket and the decision to
3:09
Speaker 1: announce you're going to put a woman on the ticket
3:11
Speaker 1: in advance. What was your reaction when you heard Biden
3:14
Speaker 1: say that? And why do you think he made that
3:16
Speaker 1: announcement when he did?
3:18
Speaker 2: So let me stipulate up front that I tend to
3:21
Speaker 2: find Joe Biden to be a very sincere person, right?
3:23
Speaker 2: So I didn't love it. I didn't love– like I
3:27
Speaker 2: love– I appreciate that he understands that it's important for
3:31
Speaker 2: women to see themselves in executive office, to feel invested
3:34
Speaker 2: in the process, and that it's time. However, doing it
3:39
Speaker 2: at a debate felt like such a stunt that it, it,
3:43
Speaker 2: it cheapened it. I think, you know, it made it
3:45
Speaker 2: feel like a stunt and it's women are 50% of
3:49
Speaker 2: the population. I think it's, it's more than reasonable that
3:52
Speaker 2: a woman would be picked to be a running mate.
3:55
Speaker 2: But yeah, I thought that the, it's obviously good that
3:57
Speaker 2: a woman will be, you know, vice president for the
4:01
Speaker 2: first time ever. But I thought that doing it in
4:03
Speaker 2: the debate felt stuntish.
4:06
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting. There are a lot of people
4:09
Speaker 1: who shared your view who expressed that afterwards. And the
4:15
Speaker 1: announcement itself can't be separated from the context in which
4:17
Speaker 1: it's happening, which is, as I mentioned, it's the final debate.
4:21
Speaker 1: On stage that night were Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders,
4:24
Speaker 1: and only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. And at the time,
4:28
Speaker 1: they were competing for the votes of a number of
4:33
Speaker 1: talented– women who had not made it as far in
4:38
Speaker 1: the process, most notably Elizabeth Warren, who had dropped out,
4:40
Speaker 1: I believe, the week prior. And they were both courting
4:43
Speaker 1: her endorsement and her supporters. And so there was that
4:46
Speaker 1: political overhang on it. So I think if you were
4:50
Speaker 1: to ask the Biden campaign, beyond just the debate strategy
4:54
Speaker 1: of wanting to have the moment of debate and drive
4:56
Speaker 1: in the conversation, which they certainly did here, because all
5:00
Speaker 1: the news was about a truly historic announcement, not the
5:05
Speaker 1: disagreements between Biden and Bernie on Medicare for all or
5:08
Speaker 1: the Iraq war or the other issues of the campaign.
5:11
Speaker 1: But I think other than that, the other argument I
5:13
Speaker 1: think folks on the Biden side would make is that
5:16
Speaker 1: question was going to hang over the entire process no
5:19
Speaker 1: matter what. And Biden had already come to the conclusion
5:23
Speaker 1: that that's what he was going to do. So why
5:26
Speaker 1: be coy about it? I think that would be their case.
5:30
Speaker 1: But I You can see the argument where doing it
5:34
Speaker 1: that way potentially lifts up the idea of women in
5:39
Speaker 1: politics broadly, but may has the potential to be diminishing
5:45
Speaker 1: to the individual woman who was selected.
5:48
Speaker 3: Right.
5:49
Speaker 2: And the other thing I'd say, though, too, is that
5:51
Speaker 2: because there would have been pressure, I completely understand why
5:56
Speaker 2: he did it. You didn't really want to do it,
5:58
Speaker 2: and you got forced into doing it. So I like,
6:01
Speaker 2: that's why I say like, I find him to be
6:03
Speaker 2: an incredibly sincere person. So I don't think, you know,
6:05
Speaker 2: it felt, it feels stuntish, but I know that, you know,
6:09
Speaker 2: either way it would have, there, there would have been criticism.
6:12
Speaker 1: Right. How do you think that that pronouncement has affected
6:17
Speaker 1: the process thus far?
6:19
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the thing that we always talk about
6:23
Speaker 2: for people like you and I, who have watched this
6:25
Speaker 2: closely for years and years is, you know that going
6:28
Speaker 2: back to the beginning of our memory, these things can
6:32
Speaker 2: be called a beauty contest. There's like a very different
6:35
Speaker 2: weird feeling though, when it's just all women being compared
6:38
Speaker 2: to each other, that the beauty contest analogy takes on
6:41
Speaker 2: like an even more uncomfortable sort of feeling. But no,
6:45
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I mean, my perspective is that it's
6:47
Speaker 2: been largely the same as all the other sort of
6:51
Speaker 2: machinations and reporting around other VP selections, except this is
6:55
Speaker 2: just all women.
6:58
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's decision to put a woman on the ticket
7:00
Speaker 1: will be only the third time in American history that
7:02
Speaker 1: a woman has been the vice presidential nominee for a
7:04
Speaker 1: major party. Last week, we talked about Sarah Palin in
7:07
Speaker 1: the context of vetting, and we're going to get back
7:09
Speaker 1: to her candidacy later in the show. But I want
7:12
Speaker 1: to talk about Geraldine Ferraro first. For those who do
7:16
Speaker 1: not know or may not remember, Geraldine Ferraro was a
7:19
Speaker 1: three-term New York congresswoman and former prosecutor in who was
7:23
Speaker 1: chosen by Walter Mondale as his running mate in the
7:25
Speaker 1: 1984 presidential election. It was a historic choice at the time.
7:29
Speaker 1: Mondale had signaled he was considering multiple women, which was
7:32
Speaker 1: notable certainly at the time, but he had not committed
7:35
Speaker 1: to choosing a woman before Ferraro was announced as his
7:38
Speaker 1: running mate. Now, we're talking about this because I think
7:41
Speaker 1: it's an important part of history for people to understand.
7:43
Speaker 1: But also, when you and I had our first conversation
7:46
Speaker 1: a couple months ago about potentially doing a project around
7:52
Speaker 1: the vice presidential selection process, the first thing you said
7:54
Speaker 1: to me was that you wanted to talk about Geraldine Ferraro.
7:57
Speaker 1: What is it that has made you so fascinated by
8:00
Speaker 1: that part of American history?
8:03
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, you and I are the
8:04
Speaker 2: exact same age, which means we were like eight when
8:07
Speaker 2: the seven or eight when this was all happening. So
8:10
Speaker 2: I remember that this, I remember this was happening, but
8:13
Speaker 2: I never remembered all of the stories and the real
8:16
Speaker 2: history around it. And so a couple of years ago,
8:19
Speaker 2: I just started doing a lot of research. And I
8:23
Speaker 2: just think it's all, she is, first of all, you know,
8:26
Speaker 2: let's go back to the beginning of time, 1983. The
8:29
Speaker 2: ERA had just failed and the National Organization of Women now,
8:36
Speaker 2: which younger people may not remember now, but it was
8:39
Speaker 2: probably one of the most important feminist organizations back ever.
8:44
Speaker 2: They held their national convention, and at their convention they
8:47
Speaker 2: passed a resolution. The resolution said the vice president must
8:51
Speaker 2: be a woman, Democrats must put a woman on the ticket,
8:54
Speaker 2: or the National Organization of Women will urge a floor
8:57
Speaker 2: fight at the convention in 1984. And so it was
9:01
Speaker 2: taken pretty seriously because this was sort of the beginning
9:03
Speaker 2: of the point where women weren't seen as a special
9:06
Speaker 2: interest group, but as like 50% of the country that
9:09
Speaker 2: they were. And so people, it was taken seriously. And
9:15
Speaker 2: the National Organization of Women had endorsed Mondale before any
9:18
Speaker 2: of this was happening. But then when he became the nominee,
9:22
Speaker 2: he understood that this could really be a historic moment.
9:28
Speaker 2: And so- He considered women and, you know, women like
9:32
Speaker 2: Dianne Feinstein was on the short list. Barbara Mikulski, one
9:36
Speaker 2: of my Senate icons, was on the list. And Tip O'Neill,
9:41
Speaker 2: who was Speaker of the House at the time, urged
9:44
Speaker 2: Mondale to consider Geraldine Ferraro because she was, you know,
9:50
Speaker 2: for lack of a better description, she was a, well
9:53
Speaker 2: … her history, she was an Italian, the daughter of
9:59
Speaker 2: illiterate Italian immigrants. She was working class. She had put
10:03
Speaker 2: herself through law school. She graduated in the top 10%.
10:06
Speaker 2: She went on to be ADA assistant district attorney in
10:09
Speaker 2: Queens County. And you know, my favorite fun fact about
10:12
Speaker 2: her actually established what was then called the Special Victims Bureau,
10:16
Speaker 2: SVU law and order for those of you who watch.
10:19
Speaker 2: But Tip O'Neill thought that she had incredible political chops.
10:25
Speaker 2: She knew how to get things done. She could represent
10:28
Speaker 2: the women, but she also really got along with the men.
10:31
Speaker 2: And the men appreciated her because when she talked about feminism,
10:34
Speaker 2: she didn't say it was anything, she didn't make it
10:37
Speaker 2: about men. She just made it about all of them
10:39
Speaker 2: working together and being equal. So Tip O'Neill was really
10:42
Speaker 2: sort of instrumental in getting her the consideration that she
10:46
Speaker 2: was due.
10:49
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that you pushed us to talk about
10:51
Speaker 1: this because, like you, I was quite young for this election.
10:55
Speaker 1: And the 1984 election is sort of an election for
10:58
Speaker 1: a lot of political junkies that's lost to history. Democrats
11:03
Speaker 1: don't like discussing an election where we lost the Electoral
11:06
Speaker 1: College 525 to 13, where the Mondale ticket only won
11:10
Speaker 1: Minnesota and the District of Columbia. But it also sort
11:14
Speaker 1: of was the last election before it became– sort of
11:19
Speaker 1: part of the process where every election would be filled
11:21
Speaker 1: with a bunch of tell-all books. It was in the
11:25
Speaker 1: 1988 election where Richard Ben Cramer wrote What It Takes,
11:27
Speaker 1: the all-time greatest political campaign book. And every election since
11:31
Speaker 1: then has been filled with these insider accounts. That's sort
11:34
Speaker 1: of missing in 1984. But when you go back and
11:40
Speaker 1: you read the history about it and you look what happened,
11:42
Speaker 1: it really was, and particularly around the selection of Joe DiFerraro,
11:46
Speaker 1: it both helps explain how we get to the situation
11:49
Speaker 1: we're in. It was the beginning of a lot of
11:51
Speaker 1: really important movement in American politics writ large in the
11:55
Speaker 1: Democratic Party specifically. And there are a couple of political
11:58
Speaker 1: factors here that I think are really interesting about how
12:01
Speaker 1: Geraldine Ferraro ended up on the ticket. One, in 1980,
12:05
Speaker 1: even though Reagan beat Carter, Carter did better with women
12:10
Speaker 1: than men. And so this was the beginning of what
12:12
Speaker 1: is known as the gender gap, which has been a
12:15
Speaker 1: you know, a factor in American politics ever since where
12:17
Speaker 1: Democrats do better with women. And, you know, groups like NOW,
12:21
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, emphasize that and use that as a
12:25
Speaker 1: pressure point on Democratic politicians to do the right thing
12:29
Speaker 1: and take women seriously. But also, you know, someone who
12:32
Speaker 1: played an important role in this and talked about a
12:34
Speaker 1: lot is Jesse Jackson. Because Jesse Jackson got in the
12:36
Speaker 1: race and he pledged to pick a woman if he
12:38
Speaker 1: was the nominee, which changed the conversation around Mondale, who,
12:43
Speaker 1: you know, was a former vice president, was the frontrunner.
12:45
Speaker 1: and put pressure on. And you can see what happened
12:51
Speaker 1: with Mondale. We'll talk about this with Palin and how
12:54
Speaker 1: it applies to Joe Biden's decision as we go through
12:56
Speaker 1: this podcast. But it shows that a lot has changed
13:00
Speaker 1: over time, but not enough when you look at the
13:02
Speaker 1: treatment of it. So a lot of women like Hillary
13:05
Speaker 1: Clinton and Nancy Pelosi and women who ran up and
13:08
Speaker 1: down the ballot and just followed politics were inspired by
13:11
Speaker 1: Mondale's selection of Ferraro, the 1984 convention. And Ferraro's speech
13:14
Speaker 1: is incredibly moving. I'd recommend checking out the documentary Geraldine
13:17
Speaker 1: Ferraro Paving the Way if you want to learn more
13:19
Speaker 1: about this. You know, in that documentary, one of my
13:22
Speaker 1: favorite moments is the response to the pick from Congresswoman
13:25
Speaker 1: and future Senator Barbara Mikulski. This is how she responded
13:28
Speaker 1: to the news.
13:30
Speaker 5: I'm home in Baltimore and the phone rings at seven
13:33
Speaker 5: o'clock in the morning. It was Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly saying
13:38
Speaker 5: to me, she got the call. She got the call.
13:45
Speaker 5: And there's the press. And they wanted to interview me.
13:49
Speaker 5: And there I am, you know, in my sleeping togs,
13:52
Speaker 5: picking up the window, yelling down at the media saying,
13:57
Speaker 5: Mazel Tov, it's a girl.
13:58
Speaker 1: Mazel Tov, it's a girl. Alyssa, how do you think
14:02
Speaker 1: Geraldine Ferraro's candidacy served as inspiration for a lot of
14:06
Speaker 1: women in politics?
14:08
Speaker 2: Well, I think in the same, it was sort of
14:11
Speaker 2: true when we worked for the Obama campaign in 2007
14:15
Speaker 2: and 2008, it's impossible to dream something that you can't see.
14:20
Speaker 2: And so there were so many women who wanted to
14:23
Speaker 2: be more active in politics who just never really thought
14:28
Speaker 2: that if you can't get all the way to the top,
14:31
Speaker 2: I guess you're just like going to do it so
14:33
Speaker 2: you can get as far as you can go. But
14:34
Speaker 2: the idea that you could potentially, that the world was open,
14:37
Speaker 2: that the country was open to the idea of having
14:40
Speaker 2: a woman in the executive office, I think was really powerful.
14:44
Speaker 2: And like, you know, we've seen a lot in our time.
14:46
Speaker 2: And even when I watch her give her speech, accepting
14:50
Speaker 2: the nomination at the convention in San Francisco in 1984,
14:53
Speaker 2: it's very emotional because it still hasn't happened, right? Like,
14:56
Speaker 2: I mean, Hillary, of course, ran for president, but she
14:59
Speaker 2: hasn't won. And so I think that back then the
15:02
Speaker 2: idea that it was possible, well, one, and just in practicality,
15:06
Speaker 2: it inspired more women to run and to participate in
15:09
Speaker 2: the process and just also be really hopeful that they
15:13
Speaker 2: actually were being looked at as like 50% of the
15:16
Speaker 2: actual population and not just, you know, women.
15:19
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a, when you see, when you
15:23
Speaker 1: read about and you watch the response of not just
15:26
Speaker 1: among women politicians like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi and others,
15:31
Speaker 1: but you see the response among women around the country
15:34
Speaker 1: in that moment. I mean, Geraldine Farrar became an instant
15:36
Speaker 1: national celebrity. She was sort of a much bigger draw
15:40
Speaker 1: on the campaign trail at times than Mondale himself. It
15:43
Speaker 1: does show that representation matters, right? That having a woman
15:49
Speaker 1: on the ticket said something to a lot of men
15:52
Speaker 1: and women, frankly, about what women could do. And you know,
15:56
Speaker 1: I think that that should never be discounted, the importance
15:59
Speaker 1: of it. Even, you know, and it had, you know,
16:02
Speaker 1: to be very clear, Mondale was a massive underdog the
16:06
Speaker 1: entire campaign. Reagan was quite popular. He seemed cruising to re-election.
16:10
Speaker 1: The Mondale campaign was down 15 points prior to the
16:14
Speaker 1: Ferraro selection. And after picking Geraldine Ferraro, they roared into
16:19
Speaker 1: essentially a tie. Now, it obviously didn't end that way,
16:22
Speaker 1: but there was a, you know, I think the response
16:26
Speaker 1: to Ferraro, and frankly, what also happened to Sarah Palin,
16:29
Speaker 1: that we'll talk about in a sec, speaks to both
16:32
Speaker 1: the potential and the peril of picking a woman as
16:36
Speaker 1: your vice president. That you are picking a woman in
16:39
Speaker 1: an environment that even all these years later is still
16:43
Speaker 1: filled with misogyny in media, in politics, in the populace,
16:47
Speaker 1: and some of the responses to Ferraro, maybe they seem
16:52
Speaker 1: incredibly out of date now, but they're actually not that
16:54
Speaker 1: unfamiliar to what Hillary Clinton faced in 2008, 2016, that
16:59
Speaker 1: all of the women who ran for president in 2020 faced.
17:04
Speaker 1: It was pretty clear in 1984 that the treatment Ferraro
17:07
Speaker 1: received on the campaign trail was pretty sexist. She got
17:09
Speaker 1: asked on Meet the Press if she was, quote, strong
17:11
Speaker 1: enough to push the button, referring to her willingness to
17:14
Speaker 1: deploy nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Ferraro later talked
17:18
Speaker 1: about the press coverage itself, telling a documentarian this.
17:21
Speaker 6: Press was very hard on me. Very hard. Especially the
17:27
Speaker 6: white men. It's always like taking an exam. Do you
17:31
Speaker 6: have an exam on foreign policy? Because, Jerry, you're now
17:35
Speaker 6: going to take it. And the stuff about, are you
17:37
Speaker 6: tough enough to push the button? My response was also,
17:41
Speaker 6: I'm tough enough to make sure that I have policies
17:43
Speaker 6: in place where you don't have to push the button.
17:45
Speaker 1: Listen, it wasn't just the press or even white men
17:48
Speaker 1: that had a very sexist response to Geraldine Ferraro. There
17:53
Speaker 1: was in a documentary, this amazing clip of Ferraro campaigning
17:57
Speaker 1: in Mississippi, where she's sitting next to a much older
18:01
Speaker 1: white politician who is not named, who turns and asks her,
18:05
Speaker 1: can you make blueberry muffins? Little lady. Yeah, little lady. Yes,
18:10
Speaker 1: little lady, can you make blueberry muffins? And she at
18:15
Speaker 1: first is obviously taken back a little bit, but without
18:17
Speaker 1: sort of missing a beat, turns to him and says, yes,
18:19
Speaker 1: I can. Can you? Which I thought was an absolutely
18:21
Speaker 1: great response. But there's also a pretty famous story about
18:28
Speaker 1: Barbara Bush. Do you want to tell that story?
18:30
Speaker 7: Sure.
18:30
Speaker 2: Well, and Barbara Bush. So the interesting thing though, too,
18:35
Speaker 2: I think just to go back one beat that I
18:38
Speaker 2: don't want to miss the point on is that in 1984,
18:42
Speaker 2: the women of the Mondale campaign and feminist leaders did
18:50
Speaker 2: take the choice so deadly serious because they didn't want
18:53
Speaker 2: it to be seen as symbolic, right? They wanted whoever
18:56
Speaker 2: ran to really be able to sort of take the
18:58
Speaker 2: punches and be a real contender. And so Geraldine Ferraro,
19:02
Speaker 2: I think, did match the moment in that regard. And
19:06
Speaker 2: like you said, down in Mississippi, they ask her, can
19:11
Speaker 2: she make muffins? And then you have the media just
19:15
Speaker 2: really sort of loved, they loved the fact that she
19:20
Speaker 2: was a woman. And in some instances, they really wanted
19:23
Speaker 2: to be able to write the story that Mondale had
19:25
Speaker 2: picked a woman and she didn't get across the fucking
19:27
Speaker 2: finish line. And so they blew up this interaction into
19:31
Speaker 2: just something seismic when Barbara Bush, who was campaigning for
19:36
Speaker 2: her husband, was out and someone asked her a question
19:40
Speaker 2: off the record about Geraldine Ferraro. And she said that
19:44
Speaker 2: she rhymes with rich. And so everyone extrapolates that that
19:49
Speaker 2: means bitch. Barbara later says that it meant witch because
19:52
Speaker 2: it was right before Halloween. Either way, the media blows
19:56
Speaker 2: this up. Barbara Bush says to her husband that she
19:59
Speaker 2: thinks she sunk the campaign. She can't believe she did this.
20:02
Speaker 2: She's so sorry. So the first thing she does also
20:04
Speaker 2: without missing a beat is call Ferraro to apologize. And
20:09
Speaker 2: Ferraro kind of as a testament to her political grit
20:12
Speaker 2: was like, girl, we're good. You know, she's like, Barbara,
20:15
Speaker 2: you know, don't even worry about it. It wasn't even
20:18
Speaker 2: that bad. Like, we're good. And so, and Barbara Bush
20:22
Speaker 2: in retelling the story just says, like, she was so gracious. Like,
20:26
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. I was so upset. And this
20:28
Speaker 2: was her response to me. And then, of course, the
20:30
Speaker 2: media frothing at the mouth stalks Jerry Ferraro down like prey.
20:35
Speaker 2: And it's like, is it true?
20:36
Speaker 8: Is it true?
20:36
Speaker 2: She apologized to you. She's like, yeah, Barbara Bush is
20:40
Speaker 2: a great lady. And so in so many ways, like
20:42
Speaker 2: the sort of narrative, this cat fight that the media
20:45
Speaker 2: was dying for, she just wouldn't give it to them.
20:48
Speaker 2: And she's like, no, she's Barbara Bush is a great lady.
20:51
Speaker 2: So moving on. And you could, you could even see
20:54
Speaker 2: when you watch the coverage that reporters were like disappointed.
20:56
Speaker 2: They were like, no, tell us she's a bitch too. But,
20:59
Speaker 2: but she would do no such thing because she truly
21:01
Speaker 2: just understood it was, you know, par for the course.
21:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there are so many dynamics that we've
21:07
Speaker 1: seen play themselves out in politics in the years since
21:11
Speaker 1: in the press coverage, right? One is trying to pit
21:13
Speaker 1: two women against each other, right? Whether that is Hillary
21:16
Speaker 1: Clinton and Michelle Obama, whether it is Kamala Harris and
21:19
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren or whatever it is, like that is always
21:22
Speaker 1: a frequent dynamic. Another part of the campaign that was,
21:24
Speaker 1: there was this intense press coverage on the finances of
21:29
Speaker 1: Jody Ferraro's husband, John Zuccaro, that dominated the coverage for
21:33
Speaker 1: a month. And the thing that people can understand was
21:35
Speaker 1: they filed their taxes separately because she had a separate
21:37
Speaker 1: career from his business. And that was treated as essentially
21:42
Speaker 1: a crime that she was trying to hide things. You know,
21:45
Speaker 1: so like you can like you really got to see
21:48
Speaker 1: for the first time how things would play themselves out
21:50
Speaker 1: for a year. And, you know, the dynamic also played
21:52
Speaker 1: itself out in the debate between Farrow and Vice President
21:55
Speaker 1: George H.W. Bush, which was much more historic than I
21:58
Speaker 1: think one would think. Because, you know, now it is
22:01
Speaker 1: tradition for the vice presidential office. candidates to debate each other.
22:04
Speaker 1: But this was actually the Ferraro-Bush debate was actually only
22:08
Speaker 1: the second vice presidential nominee debate in history. Bush had
22:12
Speaker 1: not debated Mondale when Mondale was Carter's vice president in
22:16
Speaker 1: the 80 election. And it was a very historic moment.
22:20
Speaker 1: And a lot of people had questioned Ferraro's foreign policy
22:23
Speaker 1: and national security experience. And during that debate, Bush took
22:26
Speaker 1: the opportunity to try to call her knowledge into question.
22:29
Speaker 1: Here's one of the most memorable exchanges.
22:31
Speaker 3: Let me help you with the difference, Ms. Ferraro, between
22:34
Speaker 3: Iran and the embassy in Lebanon. Iran, we were heads,
22:39
Speaker 3: and our allies were with us, the British, the French,
22:42
Speaker 3: and the Italians. Congresswoman Ferraro.
22:46
Speaker 6: Let me just say, first of all, that I almost
22:48
Speaker 6: resent Vice President Bush, your patronizing attitude that you have
22:51
Speaker 6: to teach me about foreign policy.
22:55
Speaker 1: What was your reaction to that, Alyssa?
22:57
Speaker 2: I think it could be summed up by the quote
23:02
Speaker 2: of the editor of Ms. Magazine back after the debate,
23:05
Speaker 2: which was, you can't make a man look that bad
23:09
Speaker 2: and live. I loved it. I thought it was so good.
23:14
Speaker 2: I can't even like take credit for it, but she
23:16
Speaker 2: was so funny. But no, I mean, both of them
23:19
Speaker 2: went into that debate with sort of impossible expectations, right?
23:23
Speaker 2: Like George Bush couldn't be patronizing, which, you know, I'm
23:27
Speaker 2: sure was hard, turned out to be a little hard.
23:29
Speaker 2: she had to, you know, like she talks about how
23:32
Speaker 2: going into the debate, she both had to think about
23:36
Speaker 2: toning herself down with her, like she talked about how
23:39
Speaker 2: she communicated through her sense of humor, her queen's sense
23:43
Speaker 2: of humor. And she knew that she couldn't do that
23:45
Speaker 2: on stage because she didn't want to be seen as aggressive.
23:48
Speaker 2: At the same time, she was worried about how short
23:50
Speaker 2: she was compared to him. She was only five foot four.
23:53
Speaker 2: And so, I mean, it's just an incredible thing to
23:55
Speaker 2: think about all the things going on inside your head
23:57
Speaker 2: that aren't directly related to substance of what you're going
24:00
Speaker 2: to have to say. But an interesting thing for people
24:02
Speaker 2: who watch debates like we do is that it was
24:05
Speaker 2: the first time in the 1984 vice presidential debate they
24:09
Speaker 2: built a very invisible ramp for her so that people
24:11
Speaker 2: wouldn't actually see how short she was. And then they
24:14
Speaker 2: built a platform within the podium so that they would
24:17
Speaker 2: look closer in height, which is something that is still
24:19
Speaker 2: done to this day.
24:20
Speaker 1: Obviously, the choice was historic, right? The election result was
24:26
Speaker 1: not good by any chance of imagination, but I don't
24:27
Speaker 1: think anyone blames Ferraro for that loss. I mean, like
24:34
Speaker 1: Mondale was going to lose that election rather than pick
24:36
Speaker 1: Geraldine Ferraro, Ted Kennedy, the high school age Barack Obama,
24:41
Speaker 1: whatever he was going to look like. That was just
24:44
Speaker 1: the fact of the matter. But one thing that I
24:46
Speaker 1: think is notable is It appears to have left a
24:51
Speaker 1: bad taste in the mouth of the overwhelmingly male decision
24:56
Speaker 1: makers in American politics because it was 24 years later
25:01
Speaker 1: before a woman was on the ticket again. Why do
25:04
Speaker 1: you think that is?
25:07
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think that when we look back
25:10
Speaker 2: in time, what so many people just remember is that
25:13
Speaker 2: they lost, right? They lost. You picked a woman. And
25:17
Speaker 2: they lost, even though he was probably always going to lose.
25:21
Speaker 2: And I actually give her mad credit for even taking
25:23
Speaker 2: the job and giving up her congressional seat because it
25:26
Speaker 2: was such a stretch, you know, that they would win.
25:31
Speaker 2: I think that if you are a man who's running
25:34
Speaker 2: for president, you see sort of the challenges that a
25:38
Speaker 2: woman faced that others, you know, it was Geraldine Ferraro by,
25:43
Speaker 2: you know, being a woman and a Roman Catholic was, was,
25:47
Speaker 2: her feet were held to the fire time after time
25:49
Speaker 2: over her stance on abortion. It was the first time
25:52
Speaker 2: in picking a woman that a spouse's, you know, finances
25:56
Speaker 2: and a spouse's profile were brought into question and vetted
26:01
Speaker 2: at the level that they were. And so I think that,
26:04
Speaker 2: you know, you take a big risk. It's big risk,
26:07
Speaker 2: big reward, right? And I think a lot of people
26:09
Speaker 2: who ran for president after that didn't see the upside.
26:12
Speaker 3: Right.
26:22
Speaker 1: Let's transition to Sarah Palin, obviously the second woman in
26:25
Speaker 1: history to be a vice presidential selection. That obviously was
26:29
Speaker 1: a campaign we worked on. She was John McCain's running
26:31
Speaker 1: mate against Barack Obama in 2008. Do you remember when
26:35
Speaker 1: you first heard that Palin was going to be the nominee?
26:38
Speaker 2: Let's be honest, Fyfe. This is not even... for me
26:41
Speaker 2: to discuss because the thing that made our campaign so
26:44
Speaker 2: wonderful is that like we very much had our very
26:47
Speaker 2: discreet roles and responsibilities. And I remember like rolling out
26:51
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, I'm like, good to go. And they announced
26:54
Speaker 2: Sarah Palin. I will say that my immediate reaction was like,
26:57
Speaker 2: who's this? And her first like day of press was great.
27:02
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, she's like charismatic. She's got like,
27:06
Speaker 2: you know, she's like a governor who's also breastfeeding. I mean,
27:09
Speaker 2: she kind of was like, checked every single box.
27:12
Speaker 1: So a little context of how John McCain made his decision.
27:17
Speaker 1: So in 2008, the Democratic convention went first and the
27:22
Speaker 1: Republican convention was scheduled to begin the Monday after the
27:25
Speaker 1: Democratic convention. And so McCain did something that was actually
27:28
Speaker 1: quite clever for a very poorly run campaign, which was
27:31
Speaker 1: in the middle of our convention, he announced he would
27:32
Speaker 1: be making his vice presidential selection on the Friday after
27:37
Speaker 1: our convention ended. So Obama gave his nomination speech on
27:41
Speaker 1: Thursday night. And then McCain was going to announce Friday morning,
27:45
Speaker 1: which was very smart because it was a, an attempt
27:47
Speaker 1: to step on our momentum. And, you know, McCain had
27:51
Speaker 1: a short list of candidates that included Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge,
27:57
Speaker 1: who was a former Pennsylvania governor and George W. Bush's
28:01
Speaker 1: secretary of homeland security, very popular governor in Tim Pawlenty,
28:07
Speaker 1: who was the governor of Minnesota at the time, and
28:12
Speaker 1: a couple of others. And Palin was on the list,
28:15
Speaker 1: but really no one– there was never any speculation that
28:19
Speaker 1: she would get picked. And most of the speculation was
28:21
Speaker 1: around Pawlenty, Lieberman, and Ridge. And as the communications director
28:26
Speaker 1: on that campaign, I was– oversaw, in a way, some
28:32
Speaker 1: of the efforts that we were putting together to prepare
28:34
Speaker 1: for and respond to whoever the choice was. And we
28:35
Speaker 1: actually had opposition research and plans for– and we had
28:40
Speaker 1: decided in advance on messaging of what we would say
28:43
Speaker 1: for any of those people I just mentioned. We had
28:46
Speaker 1: no plan for Palin. I was sitting in my hotel
28:51
Speaker 1: room in Denver, packing my bag, getting ready to go
28:54
Speaker 1: to the airport to return to the headquarters. And I
28:57
Speaker 1: got an email from some reporter who had heard this
28:59
Speaker 1: was the announcement to be. It immediately circulated around a
29:02
Speaker 1: bunch of people in the campaign leadership who focused on communications.
29:06
Speaker 1: And we all thought it had to be bad reporting.
29:08
Speaker 1: We almost laughed at it. And then it was confirmed on,
29:11
Speaker 1: I think, on the morning shows that morning. I was
29:14
Speaker 1: a little tired. I'd stayed out perhaps a little bit
29:16
Speaker 1: later than I should have celebrating Barack Obama accepting the nomination.
29:20
Speaker 1: And So the campaign immediately got on the phone, and
29:25
Speaker 1: we quickly hammered out a response. We had no plan
29:28
Speaker 1: for this. I honestly knew nothing about her other than
29:32
Speaker 1: she was the governor of Alaska, nothing else. And so
29:35
Speaker 1: we quickly hammered out a statement that criticized McCain for choosing,
29:39
Speaker 1: and I'm quoting, her original statement here, the former mayor
29:42
Speaker 1: of a town with 9,000 with zero foreign public experience,
29:45
Speaker 1: a heartbeat away from the presidency. We put that together.
29:50
Speaker 1: We put it out under the name of a spokesperson.
29:53
Speaker 1: The spokesperson was fortunately not me, although it obviously could
29:56
Speaker 1: have been. And we hit send. And so the first
30:00
Speaker 1: mistake we made was this was a decision made by
30:03
Speaker 1: a group of people who was probably overwhelmingly male. And
30:07
Speaker 1: we did not in any way factor in the historical
30:11
Speaker 1: significance of this selection for not just people who would
30:16
Speaker 1: support John McCain, but for women across the country. And
30:19
Speaker 1: the second mistake we made was we forgot to talk
30:22
Speaker 1: to Barack Obama before we hit send. And so- Zoink, Scoop. Yeah,
30:28
Speaker 1: that never goes well. And so Barack Obama and Joe
30:31
Speaker 1: Biden were sitting next to each other on the plane,
30:35
Speaker 1: on the tarmac in Denver, getting ready to take off
30:38
Speaker 1: to begin the post-convention barnstorming tour or whatever it was
30:42
Speaker 1: going to be. I'm sure it was going to be
30:43
Speaker 1: a bus or a train or a boat or something.
30:45
Speaker 1: And David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs and a few others,
30:48
Speaker 1: I think, walked up to Obama and Biden to talk
30:50
Speaker 1: to them in the cabin about the choice, and they
30:53
Speaker 1: showed him the statement. Barack Obama was not pleased because
30:57
Speaker 1: he immediately got what we did not get. On the spot,
31:02
Speaker 1: he dictated a new statement that went out under both
31:06
Speaker 1: his and Joe Biden's name. Joe Biden, new to the ticket,
31:09
Speaker 1: also not pleased with this failure to adhere to the
31:14
Speaker 1: chain of commands. They put out a new statement. I'm
31:16
Speaker 1: pretty sure that is the only statement in the history
31:19
Speaker 1: of either Obama campaign that went out under both Obama
31:22
Speaker 1: and Biden's name. And that statement was much more welcoming
31:26
Speaker 1: of Sarah Palin to the race. That's some history as
31:29
Speaker 1: to how surprising it was. I think it's also interesting
31:31
Speaker 1: that in the history of the advancement of women in politics, right?
31:36
Speaker 1: Ferrara was obviously a huge part of that. Hillary Clinton's
31:38
Speaker 1: run in 2008 is a part of that. But Sarah
31:41
Speaker 1: Palin is sort of left out of that conversation, right?
31:45
Speaker 1: She's not part of sort of the feminist history, which
31:48
Speaker 1: I think is in some part how she would want
31:50
Speaker 1: it based on her response to her candidacy. But why
31:52
Speaker 1: do you think that is? And do you think that
31:54
Speaker 1: she faced some of the same obstacles that Ferraro faced?
32:00
Speaker 2: Sarah Palin, she's a complicated bear. Look, Sarah Palin was
32:06
Speaker 2: the conductor of her own demise in so many ways.
32:10
Speaker 2: When you look at the difference between Ferraro and Palin,
32:15
Speaker 2: one of the things that's so different, I think, is
32:19
Speaker 2: that Back in 1984, the women around Ferraro, the women
32:24
Speaker 2: around Mondale, and Ferraro herself knew this was a big deal.
32:29
Speaker 2: And I think that there's always some level of hubris
32:31
Speaker 2: involved in someone deciding that they will accept, you know,
32:35
Speaker 2: the invitation to be on the ticket. Sarah Palin, her
32:39
Speaker 2: level of hubris was on a whole other level. And,
32:43
Speaker 2: you know, whereas Ferraro and the people in the Mondale
32:46
Speaker 2: campaign and feminists didn't want it to be a symbolic pick.
32:49
Speaker 2: They wanted someone serious. They wanted someone who could compete
32:52
Speaker 2: like head to head with, you know, any man. That
32:55
Speaker 2: was the criteria for that selection. I think it was
32:59
Speaker 2: known at the time. It was clear at the time
33:01
Speaker 2: and it's known now. The Palin pick was meant to
33:06
Speaker 2: shock and awe, right? Like the intention of picking Sarah
33:10
Speaker 2: Palin was not to forward the cause of women. It
33:13
Speaker 2: was not, you know, the people who sat around on
33:16
Speaker 2: McCain's campaign weren't like, we are fucking feminists and we
33:20
Speaker 2: are just going to do this. There was, the thing I,
33:22
Speaker 2: the reason I think it's so different is because the
33:25
Speaker 2: intention was so different. And the fact that the people
33:30
Speaker 2: on the McCain campaign who didn't understand yeah, it was
33:35
Speaker 2: going to get fucking great ratings and they were going
33:37
Speaker 2: to get a lot of press, blah, blah, blah, but
33:39
Speaker 2: that they didn't understand what an important move this was
33:42
Speaker 2: for women and to have taken it more seriously and
33:45
Speaker 2: to have vetted her. Like the things that were Palin's
33:48
Speaker 2: undoing were not hard to find, you know? Like she
33:53
Speaker 2: didn't understand foreign policy. She had limited experience. Like her vetting,
33:57
Speaker 2: as we talked about last week, That's just– it's not–
34:01
Speaker 2: if you care about setting someone up for success, which
34:04
Speaker 2: anyone who's picking someone who's never been represented really in–
34:09
Speaker 2: at this level of politics before should have, they didn't do.
34:12
Speaker 2: And so, you know, a lot of times people will say,
34:15
Speaker 2: you know, did Sarah Palin set back women? It's like, no,
34:19
Speaker 2: Sarah Palin set back some white men's judgments. Like, that's
34:23
Speaker 2: what she set back.
34:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
34:26
Speaker 2: But, you know, there was an interesting thing in some
34:28
Speaker 2: of the people at the Palin rally. I don't know
34:32
Speaker 2: if you will ever remember the guy Larry Hawkins. I
34:35
Speaker 2: remembered him and so I tried to search and remember
34:38
Speaker 2: exactly what he said. But Larry Hawkins was at, he
34:41
Speaker 2: was interviewed at one of her first rallies and he said,
34:46
Speaker 2: they bear us children, they risk their lives to give
34:48
Speaker 2: us birth, so maybe it's time we let a woman
34:51
Speaker 2: lead us. Now, I know that sounds crazy that I
34:54
Speaker 2: think that that's a positive thing. But someone who was
34:58
Speaker 2: not like a progressive, you know, feminist male, like the
35:02
Speaker 2: fact that she opened his eyes up in that way. Now,
35:05
Speaker 2: I don't know if they were still open after she
35:08
Speaker 2: spent $ 150, 000 on clothing and attacked staff, but like, and
35:13
Speaker 2: like failed miserably in most televised interviews that she did
35:16
Speaker 2: because she was fundamentally unprepared to be vice president. But
35:20
Speaker 2: I do think that to a certain extent, you know, yeah,
35:24
Speaker 2: I guess women can flame out as well as men.
35:27
Speaker 1: Well, I think in going back and looking at all
35:31
Speaker 1: of this stuff in preparation for this podcast, it is,
35:33
Speaker 1: I think, a really complex situation to judge that candidacy appropriately.
35:44
Speaker 1: Because I think it is deeply unfair to Geraldine Ferraro
35:48
Speaker 1: to compare the two of them. Correct. They have almost
35:51
Speaker 1: nothing in common other than being women who were selected
35:55
Speaker 1: as vice presidents.
35:57
Speaker 3: And it.
35:59
Speaker 1: Is also very clear that Mondale's campaign, although it was
36:04
Speaker 1: in a very similar political position as McCain's when they
36:07
Speaker 1: made the choice, but Mondale's campaign took it very seriously
36:10
Speaker 1: and there were women at the table when the decision
36:12
Speaker 1: was made. And so they made that decision knowing that
36:17
Speaker 1: this was a very important moment that if handled incorrectly
36:21
Speaker 1: would have pretty serious consequences for the advance of feminism
36:24
Speaker 1: in American life. So I think that is true. But
36:27
Speaker 1: it is also true that the reception from the press,
36:31
Speaker 1: the political world, and the populace of those two campaigns
36:34
Speaker 1: are quite similar, actually. And it is, of course, hard
36:38
Speaker 1: to separate how unseriously Sarah Palin took her role from
36:43
Speaker 1: how seriously it should be considered in history. You briefly
36:48
Speaker 1: mentioned wardrobe. It was a huge scandal during the campaign
36:52
Speaker 1: that Sarah Palin- had reportedly asked the McCain campaign to
36:56
Speaker 1: buy her new clothes and that they had spent a
36:58
Speaker 1: lot of money on those clothes. Now, certainly that was
37:02
Speaker 1: a moment in which we, on the Obama campaign, took
37:05
Speaker 1: political advantage of, right?
37:07
Speaker 3: Oh, yes.
37:09
Speaker 1: But that is just never a story that would ever
37:11
Speaker 1: be written about a man. It doesn't matter, right? So
37:15
Speaker 1: that's one. And then the other one is, obviously, she
37:18
Speaker 1: did not take government seriously, politics seriously. did not take
37:22
Speaker 1: preparing for the presidency seriously. She sort of laughed at it.
37:26
Speaker 1: But then a few years later, Donald Trump comes down
37:30
Speaker 1: the escalator, acts the exact same way. In fact, much
37:34
Speaker 1: less experienced than Sarah Palin and was treated at least–
37:39
Speaker 1: like did not face the same level of attacks from
37:42
Speaker 1: some people that Palin did. Not that people took Donald
37:44
Speaker 1: Trump seriously on his face. He's a ridiculous human being
37:47
Speaker 1: and was often treated– with the appropriate amount of ridiculousness
37:50
Speaker 1: and derision. But just I think when you look at
37:52
Speaker 1: the coverage of Palin and her mistakes and the coverage
37:55
Speaker 1: of Trump and his mistakes, you can see both a
37:59
Speaker 1: conscious and unconscious bias in how we talk about politics.
38:03
Speaker 1: And I think there's other parallel with Ferraro, which is
38:07
Speaker 1: Sarah Palin, like Ferraro, also had a big political impact,
38:13
Speaker 1: at least in the short term. Like the race got close.
38:17
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. We were winning by a lot. And the
38:20
Speaker 1: selection of Palin energized the McCain campaign and narrowed the polls.
38:25
Speaker 1: And there were some moments of panic among the Democratic establishment,
38:29
Speaker 1: if not the Obama campaign, about how the race was narrowing.
38:33
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that when you read both some of
38:37
Speaker 1: the accounts of the internal discussions in the Mondale campaign
38:41
Speaker 1: about the choice of 4-0 and the internal discussions within
38:44
Speaker 1: the McCain campaign about Palin, there is a similar born
38:51
Speaker 1: of desperation element to it, right? So this is from
38:55
Speaker 1: the book Game Change when McCain made the decision. McCain
38:59
Speaker 1: was leaning towards Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who would have
39:02
Speaker 1: been clearly a safe pick, you know, governor of the
39:05
Speaker 1: battleground state of Minnesota. It's one that McCain very incorrectly
39:09
Speaker 1: thought he'd be able to put into play because Bush
39:11
Speaker 1: had done very well in it in 2004. But this
39:14
Speaker 1: is what Ms. Schmidt told McCain. Here's my view of
39:17
Speaker 1: the politics of it. In any normal year, Tim Pawlenty
39:19
Speaker 1: is a great pick, a no-brainer. But this isn't a
39:22
Speaker 1: normal year. We need to have a transformative, electrifying moment
39:24
Speaker 1: in the campaign. That's almost word for word what some
39:26
Speaker 1: of the Mondale advisors were talking about when they were
39:30
Speaker 1: choosing between Ferraro and some of the men on the list.
39:34
Speaker 1: And it had the impact. It just didn't stick. But
39:37
Speaker 1: the problems with the choice itself and then the rollout
39:39
Speaker 1: of the choice are tied to this conversation we had
39:41
Speaker 1: around vetting last week, which is that they didn't put
39:46
Speaker 1: any real thought into it. This was the full extent
39:47
Speaker 1: of the conversation, right? The Ferraro selection was part of
39:51
Speaker 1: a much longer, more serious process that Mondale had engaged
39:55
Speaker 1: in and met with all of the people many times.
39:58
Speaker 1: I think McCain and Palin met once. Yeah, I think once.
40:02
Speaker 1: And then made this, you know, made a decision based
40:04
Speaker 1: on that. And that's never a way to make a
40:05
Speaker 1: decision whether you're, you know, buying a mattress or picking
40:09
Speaker 1: a vice president. What, you know, pushing this forward to 2020,
40:14
Speaker 1: do you see any specific lessons for the Biden campaign
40:18
Speaker 1: from these two historical examples?
40:21
Speaker 2: I think that, you know, the most important thing is
40:25
Speaker 2: making sure, like, there is nothing more important than the
40:29
Speaker 2: vetting and rollout of whoever this person is. This woman,
40:35
Speaker 2: I don't even have to say person, this woman will be.
40:38
Speaker 2: Because I think you see the difference, even with someone
40:42
Speaker 2: like Ferraro, who was so thoroughly vetted and had been
40:45
Speaker 2: in public life, it is a feeding frenzy because look,
40:49
Speaker 2: all of the candidates, Trump has been president for like
40:52
Speaker 2: four fucking years at this point. Biden's been in public
40:55
Speaker 2: life for 40 years. The running mate, Pence has been
40:58
Speaker 2: vice president. Whoever this person is, is going to be
41:01
Speaker 2: the most exciting thing to talk about and report on.
41:04
Speaker 2: And so setting whoever the VP select is up for
41:10
Speaker 2: success is is critical. And anything less than the most
41:15
Speaker 2: thorough process is malpractice, in my opinion.
41:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. We've seen this happen twice now.
41:24
Speaker 1: We've seen that regardless of what progress has been made
41:29
Speaker 1: since Geraldine Farrow was elected in 1984, that a woman
41:35
Speaker 1: vice president is going to get more scrutiny than face
41:39
Speaker 1: higher hurdles and greater expectations than any man who would
41:42
Speaker 1: be picked.
41:44
Speaker 8: Right.
41:44
Speaker 1: And we know that because we just went through a
41:47
Speaker 1: 2020 primary where we saw Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar,
41:52
Speaker 1: and others held to much higher standards than the men
41:55
Speaker 1: who ran. Higher standards of electability, higher standards of, quote unquote, toughness,
42:01
Speaker 1: higher standards of policy knowledge, all of the above. Joe
42:06
Speaker 1: Biden has a list, we believe, of 10 to 11 people.
42:09
Speaker 1: Every one of them is smarter, more qualified, more responsible,
42:16
Speaker 1: more dynamic than Mike Pence.
42:19
Speaker 8: To all of them.
42:21
Speaker 1: Who is basically homophobic tub of paste, right? Like he's
42:26
Speaker 1: the most boring human being possible. But Mike Pence is
42:33
Speaker 1: held to no standards, right?
42:34
Speaker 3: Right.
42:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, when he was picked, there were some stories about
42:37
Speaker 1: when he thought that one of the greatest threats to
42:39
Speaker 1: American civilization was the Disney movie Milan. Obviously, there was
42:43
Speaker 1: controversy around some of his previous positions and the fact
42:46
Speaker 1: that he was just an absolutely miserable governor and seen
42:49
Speaker 1: by many as one of the dumbest people to serve
42:51
Speaker 1: in the United States House of Representatives. But he fit
42:54
Speaker 1: the mold of what people have historically expected from a
42:59
Speaker 1: vice president, right? A white man governor.
43:00
Speaker 2: You mean that he had good posture and he was white?
43:03
Speaker 1: Do you think he has good posture?
43:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.
43:06
Speaker 2: He's like got to pull up his butt. He's like
43:08
Speaker 2: very shoulders back straight ahead. He has good posture. I'll
43:11
Speaker 2: give him that.
43:12
Speaker 3: Okay.
43:12
Speaker 1: All right. Great hair. I'll say he's got excellent. He's
43:14
Speaker 1: got politician hair.
43:16
Speaker 2: He's not, he's not a silver Fox, but he's silver.
43:21
Speaker 1: It's a very strong part. I would say that's what
43:23
Speaker 1: I would say, but like they're going to be held
43:27
Speaker 1: to a tremendous standard and they're going to have to
43:29
Speaker 1: face the same challenges on the debate stage with with
43:35
Speaker 1: Mike Pence that Geraldine Ferraro faced with George H.W. Bush,
43:40
Speaker 1: and to a very different extent, Sarah Palin faced with
43:44
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. And when we come back, Alyssa is going
43:47
Speaker 1: to talk to you right at Rebecca Traster.
43:57
Speaker 2: I'm now joined by New York Magazine and The Cut's
43:59
Speaker 2: Rebecca Traister. Rebecca is also the New York Times bestselling
44:02
Speaker 2: author of Good and Mad and All the Single Ladies.
44:05
Speaker 2: I've read both. So should you. Traister, welcome to That's
44:09
Speaker 2: the Ticket.
44:10
Speaker 8: Hi. I'm very happy to be here.
44:12
Speaker 2: Thank you. Here we are talking about how you go
44:16
Speaker 2: about picking a vice president and all the things that
44:18
Speaker 2: you really never learn about on TV or Twitter if
44:22
Speaker 2: you're even half paying attention.
44:24
Speaker 3: So.
44:25
Speaker 2: Let's just say up front, before we talk about the VP,
44:28
Speaker 2: let's talk about Joe Biden for a bit.
44:30
Speaker 8: I love talking about Joe Biden. You know what?
44:33
Speaker 2: I know that about you, and I feel like we're
44:34
Speaker 2: going to have a very robust conversation. During the primary,
44:38
Speaker 2: you were not supportive of Joe Biden.
44:40
Speaker 3: No.
44:41
Speaker 2: You were not alone. Let's stipulate for the purposes of
44:46
Speaker 2: this conversation that we all acknowledge this election is an
44:49
Speaker 2: existential threat to our global well-being.
44:51
Speaker 3: Yes.
44:52
Speaker 2: However, that doesn't mean that our candidates don't have to
44:55
Speaker 2: do the work. What are some of the biggest issues
44:58
Speaker 2: you think he has to overcome in winning over voters
45:01
Speaker 2: who were supporting more progressive candidates, let's say?
45:07
Speaker 7: Well, I think he has his work cut out for him.
45:13
Speaker 7: So I think that Biden is actually, if he becomes
45:19
Speaker 7: the president, well, and even beforehand, As he runs his campaign,
45:24
Speaker 7: I mean, he's in such a weird position because so
45:27
Speaker 7: much of this is being driven right now by fury, dismay,
45:32
Speaker 7: fear about the incumbent. And so there's this weird way where,
45:37
Speaker 7: to my eye, he hasn't even been that active. And
45:39
Speaker 7: it's going to be different from anything we've experienced in
45:42
Speaker 7: our lifetimes. through this summer, it's all felt slightly stalled
45:46
Speaker 7: in part because, well, on the one hand, people are
45:49
Speaker 7: paying attention to the government ineptitude and mishandling, not just
45:53
Speaker 7: coming from the White House, but on state levels and
45:55
Speaker 7: in both parties when it comes to dealing with a
45:57
Speaker 7: pandemic and the failure of the government to economically support
46:02
Speaker 7: its country and its people in a way that they
46:04
Speaker 7: can remain healthy and safe and economically stable. And that
46:07
Speaker 7: is a failure just across the board. And he's going
46:10
Speaker 7: to need to address that. You also have the protests
46:15
Speaker 7: that have erupted and so powerfully persist through this summer.
46:20
Speaker 7: One of the things that Joe Biden has straight in
46:23
Speaker 7: front of him that to my mind is slightly different
46:27
Speaker 7: from what we've seen before coming from left agitation and
46:30
Speaker 7: left-wing pressures is that the revelation he's facing is that
46:34
Speaker 7: this whole system needs to be uprooted. So it's not
46:38
Speaker 7: a matter of can he check a box on criminal
46:41
Speaker 7: justice reform or health care reform. What is happening that
46:44
Speaker 7: I think is very good for the country but is
46:46
Speaker 7: going to be a real test and challenge for this
46:49
Speaker 7: candidate and potentially this president and administration is that the
46:53
Speaker 7: education and revelation that we're in the midst of, which
46:56
Speaker 7: is long overdue, is that this is an.
46:58
Speaker 8: Entire intertwined system so that you cannot just.
47:01
Speaker 7: Do, oh, I'm going to fix this thing about health
47:04
Speaker 7: care and then satisfy progressives there. What we're getting far
47:09
Speaker 7: closer to than I remember in my past is a
47:11
Speaker 7: view of all of this is intertwined so that you
47:13
Speaker 7: can't do criminal justice reform without doing education reform, without
47:16
Speaker 7: doing housing policy reform, without doing immigration reform. We're getting
47:20
Speaker 7: a view of the deeply broken system. And so the
47:23
Speaker 7: project that is ahead of this candidate, which is very
47:26
Speaker 7: ironic because this candidate is represent so much of the
47:30
Speaker 7: past of the Democratic Party that helped to calcify and
47:33
Speaker 7: uphold this system, right, is that the desire coming from
47:38
Speaker 7: progressive critics, agitators, protesters, and progressive politicians who are in
47:43
Speaker 7: office in his house, right, who are in the House
47:45
Speaker 7: of Representatives, a couple of whom are in the Senate, right,
47:48
Speaker 7: is that we need to dig up the bones of
47:51
Speaker 7: the whole thing.
47:53
Speaker 8: And that is a big fucking project.
47:55
Speaker 5: Yeah.
47:57
Speaker 2: That is a big project. Do you think, so let's
48:01
Speaker 2: go back in time a little bit to March. Joe
48:04
Speaker 2: Biden's on the debate stage. He declares that he is
48:07
Speaker 2: going to pick a woman to be his running mate.
48:11
Speaker 2: How'd that hit you?
48:13
Speaker 8: No. It's a woman. It's a woman. It's a woman.
48:18
Speaker 8: Who can tell them apart, really? Yeah.
48:23
Speaker 7: I didn't love it. I didn't love it insofar as...
48:26
Speaker 7: I mean, I want to separate a couple issues. I
48:30
Speaker 7: care very much about representation in politics. And that is
48:34
Speaker 7: not to say that I think getting closer to equal
48:37
Speaker 7: representation fixes our politics.
48:39
Speaker 8: So there are a lot of distinct issues here, right?
48:41
Speaker 7: We have a broken system that is built around capitalist
48:45
Speaker 7: white patriarchy, right?
48:46
Speaker 8: Which means that.
48:48
Speaker 7: You know, capitalism, money is in charge, men have been
48:51
Speaker 7: in charge, and white people have been in charge, right?
48:54
Speaker 7: And not just in charge as far as individuals. The
48:57
Speaker 7: system's been built around all these things, right? And so
49:00
Speaker 7: that's created all kinds of intertwining inequality. It is also
49:04
Speaker 7: true that the individuals who run these systems, and for
49:07
Speaker 7: now we're talking about government and electoral politics, also have
49:11
Speaker 7: not been representative of the people that they govern, police, tax,
49:15
Speaker 7: all of that, right?
49:17
Speaker 8: I care about representation. It matters.
49:19
Speaker 7: It really matters that there's never, ever been a woman
49:23
Speaker 7: who has been our.
49:25
Speaker 8: President or a vice president.
49:27
Speaker 7: That there's only ever been one woman who has ever
49:30
Speaker 7: been a major party nominee for the presidency. And that
49:32
Speaker 7: was four years ago.
49:34
Speaker 8: It went great. And it matters. And so Joe Biden.
49:39
Speaker 7: is signaling like the most rudimentary acknowledgement of the fact
49:42
Speaker 7: that that matters. It would have been nice if he
49:45
Speaker 7: had just saved it and named a specific woman.
49:48
Speaker 8: It would have been great.
49:50
Speaker 2: That's how I felt.
49:51
Speaker 8: I like the commitment. I agree.
49:53
Speaker 7: Look, depending on which woman he picks, I'll be very,
49:57
Speaker 7: very pleased.
49:59
Speaker 2: Do you think that this helps Biden draw a starker
50:03
Speaker 2: contrast between his candidacy and Trump's presidency and- What do
50:09
Speaker 2: you think Mike Pence is going to do on stage
50:12
Speaker 2: at the BP debate?
50:14
Speaker 8: He's going to bring his wife up so he's not
50:16
Speaker 8: alone with her.
50:18
Speaker 7: I mean, if you need the female vice president to
50:21
Speaker 7: be your contrast to tell you that Donald Trump is
50:25
Speaker 7: like abysmally hateful, punitive and abusive and disrespectful toward women,
50:32
Speaker 7: then there are problems that are larger than any vice
50:34
Speaker 7: presidential pick are going to solve.
50:36
Speaker 2: Um, so sure.
50:37
Speaker 5: Yeah.
50:38
Speaker 8: It'll make that contrast clear.
50:39
Speaker 7: I mean, I think one of the things about the
50:41
Speaker 7: Trump administration, I'm always hesitant to, you know, Trump is
50:45
Speaker 7: like extraordinarily and exceptionally awful. And I don't want to
50:48
Speaker 7: deny that, but I am always wary of the way
50:50
Speaker 7: that we focus on Trump as like some singular problem
50:54
Speaker 7: when in fact he's, he's just, um, helped to make
50:56
Speaker 7: visible what has been true.
50:58
Speaker 8: In his party for a really long time.
51:00
Speaker 7: Um, and one of the interesting things, um, that he
51:03
Speaker 7: has helped to highlight is the Republican Party has been
51:05
Speaker 7: terrible for women and to women.
51:07
Speaker 8: For decades, you know, and forever in some ways.
51:11
Speaker 7: But past administrations have worked a lot harder to do
51:13
Speaker 7: kind of window dressing. George Bush actually promoted a lot
51:16
Speaker 7: of women within his administration. You know, there's been more
51:19
Speaker 7: of that, you know, John McCain picked Sarah Palin as
51:22
Speaker 7: his running mate. You know, there's been more sense of like,
51:24
Speaker 7: we're the party of women, pretend stuff. And Donald Trump
51:27
Speaker 7: just does away with that, right? He doesn't even bother
51:30
Speaker 7: with that. So, and in fact, I think he views
51:32
Speaker 7: it as a sign of weakness because And so his
51:34
Speaker 7: power photos are all those photos of like, you know,
51:37
Speaker 7: 20 white men sitting around a table. Like people are like, oh, look,
51:40
Speaker 7: he got caught out. He's like, no, that's the message
51:42
Speaker 7: he's trying to send. Like he is very big on
51:44
Speaker 7: sending an anti-woman public message with pride and authority. But like, again,
51:49
Speaker 7: that's already established. It's not going to be like I
51:53
Speaker 7: can't imagine somebody seeing Joe Biden and his female friends.
51:58
Speaker 8: Running mate and being like.
51:59
Speaker 7: Wow, it really strikes me that Donald Trump.
52:03
Speaker 8: Doesn't respect women.
52:06
Speaker 7: But if Joe Biden and his running mate, to be
52:09
Speaker 7: named later, get elected, it will be the first time
52:13
Speaker 7: in America's history that a woman has been elected vice president.
52:18
Speaker 7: And he may pick a woman that I would rather
52:21
Speaker 7: not see as vice president, but two things can be
52:24
Speaker 7: true at one time. And one of those things that
52:26
Speaker 7: will be true is America will have done something that
52:29
Speaker 7: it has never.
52:29
Speaker 8: Done before, if it happens, right?
52:31
Speaker 7: And that that is meaningful, even if it's not meaningful
52:34
Speaker 7: in a way that satisfies me, it actually does matter
52:37
Speaker 7: that we have never seen a woman... in federal executive
52:40
Speaker 7: office before. This matters because it is reflected in our policy,
52:44
Speaker 7: how we police and tax women's bodies, how, you know,
52:48
Speaker 7: it's obviously not a lack of representation that doesn't find
52:51
Speaker 7: its reflection and echo in the way our systems are
52:55
Speaker 7: built and our laws are made. And so electing a
52:58
Speaker 7: woman isn't instantly going to, or perhaps ever going to
53:01
Speaker 7: change those laws and policies. But the fact that, you know,
53:06
Speaker 7: we can conceive of changing the representation is like, it's
53:08
Speaker 7: not meaningless.
53:09
Speaker 8: It is, in fact, to some degree, very meaningful.
53:12
Speaker 7: And let me add, I think it is possible to likely,
53:16
Speaker 7: as some of the women that he's considering are black women,
53:18
Speaker 7: Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams.
53:20
Speaker 8: You know, we have never even nominated a black woman
53:23
Speaker 8: to be vice president.
53:24
Speaker 7: We have never in this country elected a black woman
53:26
Speaker 7: to be governor of a state. I mean, probably Georgians
53:30
Speaker 7: did in 2018, but she's not the governor.
53:32
Speaker 2: So- knowing that the running mate is going to be
53:35
Speaker 2: a woman, okay, we have seen in the past couple hundred,
53:41
Speaker 2: however many years, that the media has a very specific
53:44
Speaker 2: bias in how they cover women. Ferraro, Palin, Clinton. And
53:51
Speaker 2: you have written extensively about this. I think it's important
53:54
Speaker 2: for people who are listening to be reminded of things
53:58
Speaker 2: to look out for, because I think in so much
54:00
Speaker 2: of what you wrote after 2016, People didn't realize what
54:03
Speaker 2: was happening at the time, but then when they read
54:05
Speaker 2: examples of how Secretary Clinton was unfairly treated, they were like, oh, fuck,
54:10
Speaker 2: I didn't even realize that at the time. So can
54:12
Speaker 2: you give some of your grossest examples of things people
54:15
Speaker 2: should be looking out for?
54:16
Speaker 7: Well, it was funny because I covered the Clinton campaign
54:20
Speaker 7: in 2008 in the primary campaign against Barack Obama.
54:23
Speaker 8: And it's so funny.
54:25
Speaker 7: People always say to me, God, you must be so
54:26
Speaker 7: pessimistic having covered women and issues of gender and race
54:30
Speaker 7: and class and bias in these presidential elections. It must
54:33
Speaker 7: be so depressing to just do it over and over again.
54:34
Speaker 8: And that is true.
54:35
Speaker 6: It's true.
54:36
Speaker 7: But there are also ways in which it can make
54:37
Speaker 7: you sort of optimistic because I've actually seen an arc
54:40
Speaker 7: of progress. So in 08, when Hillary Clinton was actually now,
54:44
Speaker 7: she certainly is not the first woman to run for
54:45
Speaker 7: president and not even the first woman. Shirley Chisholm in
54:48
Speaker 7: 72 made one of the first viable runs, although it
54:52
Speaker 7: was really more symbolic. And then you had Carol Mosley Brown,
54:56
Speaker 7: Pat Schroeder make runs later, Elizabeth Dole.
55:01
Speaker 8: Sort of attempt, but they didn't get very far.
55:03
Speaker 7: Clinton's run in 2008 was the closest that any woman
55:07
Speaker 7: had ever come to getting a major party nomination. And
55:09
Speaker 7: it was an incredibly drawn out, long primary battle against
55:12
Speaker 7: Barack Obama. And the media did not know what to
55:15
Speaker 7: do with her. And the examples then, which I was
55:17
Speaker 7: the first race that I really covered, were just so
55:19
Speaker 7: disgusting and egregious that if somebody like heard them now
55:22
Speaker 7: and didn't know about them, then you're like, really, that happened?
55:24
Speaker 7: I mean, one of her opponents, John Edwards, was made
55:26
Speaker 7: fun of her jacket in a debate. Like when asked
55:28
Speaker 7: to say something positive and negative about her in a debate,
55:31
Speaker 7: in a presidential debate, John Edwards said, I really admire
55:35
Speaker 7: some of the things your husband did, but I don't
55:36
Speaker 7: know about that jacket.
55:37
Speaker 8: Okay.
55:37
Speaker 7: She was the only woman standing on a stage and
55:39
Speaker 7: she was like in a pink jacket or something.
55:41
Speaker 8: He's like, I'm not sure about that jacket.
55:42
Speaker 7: So Penn Jillette said that Obama had done well in
55:47
Speaker 7: February because it was Black History Month and that Clinton
55:50
Speaker 7: was doing great in March because it was White Bitch Month.
55:53
Speaker 7: There was the Nutcracker You had people, oh, an NPR,
55:57
Speaker 7: somebody on NPR, a producer, compared her to Glenn Close
56:00
Speaker 7: in the final scene of Fatal Attraction where she comes
56:02
Speaker 7: up from the bathtub and then has to get shot
56:05
Speaker 7: and the blood smears.
56:06
Speaker 8: Anyway, and then there were just.
56:09
Speaker 7: This whole raft of, in some cases, Fox News commentators
56:11
Speaker 7: who you'd think, there was all this, you know. life's
56:15
Speaker 7: a bitch don't vote for her all that kind of
56:16
Speaker 7: bumper sticker stuff that came out of Fox News but
56:19
Speaker 7: then from like pundits on you know Morning Joe and
56:22
Speaker 7: stuff there's a lot of like she sounds just like
56:23
Speaker 7: your ex-wife standing outside of probate court like Chris Matthews
56:27
Speaker 7: said that remember she's only a candidate she's only a
56:29
Speaker 7: senator because her husband messed around I mean it was
56:32
Speaker 7: out of control like nobody had the basic vocabulary of
56:37
Speaker 7: sexism people made fun of the pantsuits it was like
56:40
Speaker 7: kindergarten sexism and then by 2016 People had gotten.
56:45
Speaker 8: Smarter, marginally smarter.
56:49
Speaker 7: And so there was less of that, like, I think
56:52
Speaker 7: she's a bitch who's going to castrate men. Although there was,
56:55
Speaker 7: there wasn't that sign that said the Vagenda of Manicide.
56:58
Speaker 8: It was like outside a church or something. It was
57:00
Speaker 8: one of my favorites.
57:01
Speaker 7: But there was by far, that wasn't coming from like
57:03
Speaker 7: an MSNBC pundit. He didn't say there was going to
57:05
Speaker 7: be a Vagenda of Manicide, which was like a stark
57:07
Speaker 7: improvement over 2008. In 2016, it was very different and
57:11
Speaker 7: it was much tougher in some ways to point it out,
57:14
Speaker 7: because especially I think as the party was growing more
57:17
Speaker 7: progressive and you had Bernie Sanders staging a really exciting
57:22
Speaker 7: run from the left. And so a lot of the
57:25
Speaker 7: criticism of Clinton was coming like there was a there's
57:29
Speaker 7: a real reckoning with a sort of center left governing
57:33
Speaker 7: ideas that Clinton was representative of. the thing that was
57:37
Speaker 7: harder then was to pick out what was gendered and
57:39
Speaker 7: what was not gendered, right? Because there was a lot
57:42
Speaker 7: of valid stuff there, but the intensity was so much,
57:45
Speaker 7: the hatred of her was so much, the vilification of
57:48
Speaker 7: her was so much. I mean, one of the things
57:49
Speaker 7: you could really pick out in 2016 was the dishonesty thing.
57:53
Speaker 8: Like of all the things you could sort of accuse Hillary.
57:55
Speaker 7: Clinton of being that were negative, you could say all
57:57
Speaker 7: kinds of critical things about her that by many measures,
58:00
Speaker 7: would be perfectly valid.
58:02
Speaker 8: But honestly, Hillary Clinton is.
58:04
Speaker 7: One of the most known figures in American politics.
58:09
Speaker 8: Hillary Clinton, for a politician, was extremely forthcoming.
58:13
Speaker 7: Of all the criticisms you could make of her, dishonesty
58:16
Speaker 7: didn't actually rank, and yet it stuck to her. And
58:20
Speaker 7: that Salamisha Tillett said there was something like biblical, something
58:22
Speaker 7: like Eve, betrayer. There was something incomprehensible about her.
58:27
Speaker 8: She wasn't human.
58:27
Speaker 7: I had people telling me throughout 2016, like liberals and
58:32
Speaker 7: people on the left, like, I don't know, she.
58:34
Speaker 8: Just doesn't seem like a human being to me. And
58:37
Speaker 8: it was like, Right. Because most of us actually don't
58:39
Speaker 8: run for president.
58:40
Speaker 7: Most of us aren't like she's not that those people
58:43
Speaker 7: aren't necessarily comprehensible to us.
58:45
Speaker 8: But like for her, it was like that made people angry.
58:47
Speaker 7: And one of the weird things about Joe Biden's victory
58:50
Speaker 7: in 2020 is that that's been kind of interesting and depressing.
58:54
Speaker 8: It's sort of made clearer. The intensity of your.
58:57
Speaker 7: Hatred feels like it's tied up in her gender. Like,
58:59
Speaker 7: you could never have that battle because it would make
59:01
Speaker 7: somebody incredibly angry.
59:02
Speaker 8: No, it's not. It's because she is a neoliberal warmonger.
59:05
Speaker 7: And you're like, okay, I see why you're arguing But
59:08
Speaker 7: I think that like the fact that you wake up
59:11
Speaker 7: thinking about how much you hate her might have a
59:12
Speaker 7: different dimension to it.
59:14
Speaker 8: So watching Joe Biden, there's not the same intensity.
59:17
Speaker 7: And he has, if anything, a far more center right
59:21
Speaker 7: record than Hillary Clinton. Like she, her campaign in 2016
59:25
Speaker 7: was actually moving in a, like her political trajectory was
59:28
Speaker 7: moving to the left. In a way that was exciting
59:31
Speaker 7: for me at the time as somebody who had been
59:33
Speaker 7: a critic of her in the past and thought that
59:35
Speaker 7: she was actually opening up to way more progressive ideas
59:38
Speaker 7: in 2016 than she.
59:39
Speaker 8: Had in 2008 and certainly as a senator.
59:41
Speaker 7: Biden, for his candidacy, hasn't, up until very recently, hasn't
59:46
Speaker 7: really signaled any moves to the left, hasn't really signaled
59:49
Speaker 7: big concessions to progressivism.
59:52
Speaker 8: His record is far more entrenched.
59:54
Speaker 7: In a sort of neoliberal, actually in the Bill Clinton
59:58
Speaker 7: administration to which Hillary always got attached, but in the
1:00:01
Speaker 7: administration there was at least one version of that story
1:00:03
Speaker 7: in which she was an arguer from the progressive side
1:00:05
Speaker 7: in the Clinton administration. But Biden was very entrenched in
1:00:09
Speaker 7: that administration. He wrote the crime bill. You know, he's
1:00:11
Speaker 7: on the wrong side of bankruptcy stuff. And yet there's
1:00:14
Speaker 7: not that same kind of I wake up in the
1:00:16
Speaker 7: morning and think about how much I hate Joe Biden.
1:00:18
Speaker 7: Adam Serwer just wrote an incredible piece for The Atlantic
1:00:21
Speaker 7: about that phenomenon on the right, which is that Trump's
1:00:25
Speaker 7: having a hard time running against Biden because you can't
1:00:27
Speaker 7: bring the race and gender stuff that, you know, Republicans
1:00:29
Speaker 7: were able to bring against Clinton and Obama in previous cycles.
1:00:35
Speaker 2: Last question for you. You have written already about how
1:00:38
Speaker 2: we've seen Democratic women forced to respond to Tara Reade's
1:00:42
Speaker 2: sexual assault allegations against Biden. Their responses got outsized coverage.
1:00:49
Speaker 2: How is this a trap for whomever his running mate is?
1:00:53
Speaker 2: And is there any way they can avoid it, provide
1:00:57
Speaker 2: satisfactory answers, or is she doomed to be asked about
1:01:01
Speaker 2: it again and again and again?
1:01:04
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, I think that there's no question that
1:01:07
Speaker 7: one of the reasons that Joe Biden has promised to
1:01:09
Speaker 7: pick a woman TM is that he has sustained a
1:01:13
Speaker 7: lot of criticism over the years, well in advance of
1:01:17
Speaker 7: the assault allegations brought by Tara Reid. He has been
1:01:20
Speaker 7: criticized for decades for things having to do both with
1:01:23
Speaker 7: his behavior and his policymaking. And so, you know, he
1:01:27
Speaker 7: has evolved, as they say, on abortion, but he had
1:01:30
Speaker 7: a bad history around abortion policy of supporting Hyde eagerly,
1:01:33
Speaker 7: even when it had no exceptions, of being personally anti-abortion
1:01:37
Speaker 7: and taking bad votes on it up until very recently.
1:01:40
Speaker 7: He's better on it now, and that's good, and I
1:01:42
Speaker 7: appreciate it and respect it. His mismanagement of the Anita
1:01:47
Speaker 7: Hill hearings in 1991 was probably an event that helped
1:01:52
Speaker 7: to form me and millions of other women politically. He
1:01:57
Speaker 7: was in charge of those hearings as the head of
1:01:58
Speaker 7: the Senate Judiciary Committee and permitted Republicans to go after
1:02:04
Speaker 7: Hill in ways that were just disgusting. And then for years,
1:02:09
Speaker 7: he claimed that he apologized to her, but he never did,
1:02:14
Speaker 7: which is something she said. He has been on the
1:02:18
Speaker 7: wrong side of all kinds of financial bad policy that
1:02:22
Speaker 7: disproportionately affects women. Go back and look at his arguments
1:02:26
Speaker 7: with Elizabeth Warren over the bankruptcy bill in 2002. And then,
1:02:30
Speaker 7: of course, there's the before you get to Tara Reade's
1:02:33
Speaker 7: assault allegation, which I think there's been considerable doubt at
1:02:35
Speaker 7: this point cast on that.
1:02:37
Speaker 8: But that's a very tough question.
1:02:39
Speaker 7: But what you do have is multiple women and lots
1:02:41
Speaker 7: of video of Joe Biden sort of making inappropriate remarks
1:02:45
Speaker 7: and touching. And that happened, by the way, I was
1:02:47
Speaker 7: during the primary campaign after he had been criticized for this,
1:02:51
Speaker 7: for having touched and kissed women in ways that made
1:02:54
Speaker 7: them feel uncomfortable, sometimes fellow politicians, young women who he
1:02:58
Speaker 7: met at public events. He didn't react by saying, gosh,
1:03:02
Speaker 7: these are bad habits, and I'm learning from what you're
1:03:05
Speaker 7: telling me about how my own personal communicative habits have
1:03:08
Speaker 7: made you uncomfortable. He turned it into a joke and said, oh,
1:03:10
Speaker 7: I know I'm not allowed to touch you. He didn't
1:03:12
Speaker 7: treat it with a lot of seriousness. He continued to
1:03:15
Speaker 7: make sort of paternalistic, patriarchal comments to young women. I mean,
1:03:19
Speaker 7: there's the one instance, you know, where he told the
1:03:22
Speaker 7: brothers of a young girl, like, your job is to
1:03:24
Speaker 7: keep the boys away.
1:03:25
Speaker 8: You know, it's just this stuff.
1:03:27
Speaker 7: So he has a long history of sustaining feminist criticism,
1:03:30
Speaker 7: and there's no question that one of the reasons that
1:03:33
Speaker 7: he will pick a woman is to, as a defense
1:03:36
Speaker 7: against some of that kind of stuff.
1:03:37
Speaker 8: It's a strategic move, and it's probably not dumb.
1:03:41
Speaker 7: And what that means for that woman, whoever she may be,
1:03:46
Speaker 7: Is that she will be asked to defend a guy
1:03:48
Speaker 7: who sustained really valid feminist criticism over the years.
1:03:52
Speaker 8: And that's part of her job. And is there a
1:03:55
Speaker 8: way for her to win at that?
1:03:57
Speaker 2: You know?
1:03:58
Speaker 8: I mean, this is politics, so we're in the real world.
1:04:01
Speaker 8: We're not in an ideal world.
1:04:03
Speaker 7: I think that there are certain running mates he could
1:04:05
Speaker 7: pick who would respond to some of that stuff by saying,
1:04:09
Speaker 7: you know, I shared dismay back then, but he's really
1:04:11
Speaker 7: learned since now.
1:04:13
Speaker 8: By now, you know?
1:04:14
Speaker 7: There are people who might say, you know, I can't
1:04:18
Speaker 7: answer for him. And then there are other people who
1:04:21
Speaker 7: will do a more traditional route, which is the Joe
1:04:24
Speaker 7: Biden I know is a wonderful man who respects women. And,
1:04:26
Speaker 7: you know, like that's that's your canned answer.
1:04:29
Speaker 8: And that's their job to some extent.
1:04:30
Speaker 7: And what upsets me is that the prospect that those
1:04:34
Speaker 7: women in the process of defending him, which will be
1:04:37
Speaker 7: their job, would I prefer them to give the more
1:04:39
Speaker 7: honest answers and say, yes, I remember watching those hearings
1:04:41
Speaker 7: and being horrified that, you know, probably she wouldn't say horrified,
1:04:44
Speaker 7: but being feeling dismay and shock that Anita Hill sustained
1:04:49
Speaker 7: that treatment and wasn't better defended by not only Joe Biden,
1:04:51
Speaker 7: but many of the other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary panel.
1:04:56
Speaker 7: And so I share your concern, but I know that
1:04:59
Speaker 7: Joe Biden has thought and learned a lot about this
1:05:01
Speaker 7: since and understands the mistakes he made.
1:05:04
Speaker 8: I'd love to see that version of it.
1:05:06
Speaker 7: But I also hate that if we don't see that version,
1:05:09
Speaker 7: if what we get is the more traditional from perhaps
1:05:12
Speaker 7: like that same imaginary wonderful person I'm drawing in my
1:05:15
Speaker 7: brain who just says, like.
1:05:17
Speaker 8: Look, my job here is to say this.
1:05:19
Speaker 7: The Joe Biden I know is wonderful and respects women
1:05:21
Speaker 7: and like, doesn't do the deeper dive, more nuanced answer
1:05:24
Speaker 7: that then what's going to happen is that that person,
1:05:27
Speaker 7: regardless of what her actual career has been like, what
1:05:30
Speaker 7: her politics or positions are, is going to be like, Oh,
1:05:33
Speaker 7: she's just caping for Biden. She's just, um, you know,
1:05:37
Speaker 7: and that it's somehow going to be her fault. And
1:05:39
Speaker 7: that's the thing that I'm really bracing for.
1:05:42
Speaker 8: Because I feel it in myself. I feel it in myself.
1:05:44
Speaker 7: I have felt myself being really disappointed in, with some
1:05:48
Speaker 7: of the women who've been asked about Joe Biden right now,
1:05:50
Speaker 7: women who I admire and women who I respect and
1:05:54
Speaker 7: whose careers I expect to be following for decades to come.
1:05:58
Speaker 7: And I myself have felt this like, oh, why are
1:06:01
Speaker 7: you doing this? And I really check myself and I'm like,
1:06:04
Speaker 7: why am I evaluating this person based on her reaction
1:06:07
Speaker 7: to him? One of the things that if you have
1:06:09
Speaker 7: been paying attention to women in presidential politics over the
1:06:11
Speaker 7: past few cycles, one of the things you'll note is
1:06:14
Speaker 7: that women, the way they react to men Whether they
1:06:18
Speaker 7: judge them or forgive them or how they respond to
1:06:20
Speaker 7: them or how they talk to them winds up being
1:06:21
Speaker 7: the most salient thing about them. And we can look
1:06:24
Speaker 7: to specific examples. Look at Kamala Harris. What's the moment
1:06:27
Speaker 7: that everybody remembers from her presidential run? It was when
1:06:29
Speaker 7: she criticized Biden. And you either remember it in a
1:06:32
Speaker 7: way where you were like, yes, Kamala, or you were like,
1:06:35
Speaker 7: how could she say that about Joe Biden, whose son
1:06:37
Speaker 7: helped her, you know, like whatever defense mechanism you have.
1:06:40
Speaker 7: Look at Kirsten Gillibrand, whose entire career, which is a
1:06:43
Speaker 7: fascinating political career, having moved from a center member of
1:06:47
Speaker 7: the House to a very progressive politician who's done work
1:06:50
Speaker 7: on sexual harassment and assault in the military and college campuses,
1:06:53
Speaker 7: entirely evaluated based on the decisions she made around Al Franken.
1:06:58
Speaker 7: Look at Elizabeth Warren and how she got turned into
1:07:01
Speaker 7: a snake meme because of something that got leaked about
1:07:04
Speaker 7: a story she told about something Bernie Sanders said about her.
1:07:06
Speaker 7: That was like the most explosive thing about Elizabeth Warren's candidacy.
1:07:10
Speaker 7: It's all this way in which we still evaluate women
1:07:13
Speaker 7: based on how they are interacting with or defending or
1:07:17
Speaker 7: attacking powerful men who are still the centers of our concern.
1:07:21
Speaker 7: And so that's the thing I'm trying to guard against.
1:07:24
Speaker 7: I am more interested in how in these women's careers
1:07:27
Speaker 7: and ideas, independent of their relationship with whichever powerful man
1:07:31
Speaker 7: they happen to be cast either in alliance or opposition to.
1:07:35
Speaker 2: Tracer, thank you for coming on That's the Ticket.
1:07:38
Speaker 8: Thank you so much for having me.
1:07:45
Speaker 1: Alyssa, any final thoughts on this topic?
1:07:49
Speaker 2: Women are awesome. That's my final thought.
1:07:52
Speaker 1: I agree, Alyssa.
1:07:53
Speaker 2: Thank you.
1:07:56
Speaker 1: Thanks, everyone. Next week, we'll be back with the final episode.
1:08:00
Speaker 1: We will talk about how campaigns make the decision, how
1:08:04
Speaker 1: they announce the decision, and what impact the recent reckoning
1:08:10
Speaker 1: over institutional racism in this country will have on Joe
1:08:13
Speaker 1: Biden's process and his decision. Thanks, everyone, so much, and
1:08:16
Speaker 1: talk to you next week. Pod Save America is a
1:08:22
Speaker 1: Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our
1:08:26
Speaker 1: assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by
1:08:29
Speaker 1: Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.
1:08:32
Speaker 8: Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston,
1:08:36
Speaker 8: and Elisa Gutierrez for production support.
1:08:38
Speaker 7: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmel Cohnian, Yale Freed,
1:08:41
Speaker 7: and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as
1:08:44
Speaker 7: videos every week.