October 2, 2018
NEWS & NOTES
A newsletter to keep you informed about all things women and politics from the Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University.

CAWP Provides Context for the Kavanaugh Hearings
Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford (Getty Images)
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse, and following the Senate testimony of one accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh's confirmation remains on hold as the Senate reckons with the accusations. With the nation grappling with this confirmation battle in its relation to the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings, as well as how it fits into the political moment, many news organizations turned to CAWP for context. The Los Angeles Times spoke to Susan J. Carroll for a story about a party already struggling to connect with women voters as the Kavanaugh scandal erupted, and The Washington Post spoke to Kelly Dittmar for a similar story about political mobilizing in the #MeToo era. In TIME, Abby Vesoulis spoke to Debbie Walsh for a piece that took a look at four current GOP Senators whose tenures stretch back to the Hill hearings to compare their reactions then and now. In local news, The Bergen Record sent a reporter to gauge student reactions on campus at Rutgers, and they spoke with Jean Sinzdak for a sense of how this moment, and the Trump era broadly, may drive political engagement in November. In a post-hearing analysis, The San Francisco Chronicle contrasted broader audience reactions to the hearings with the narrow, critical reactions of Senate Republicans, speaking to Kelly Dittmar for the piece. NPR spoke to CAWP's founding director, Ruth Mandel, for historical comparisons to the Anita Hill hearing, and CNBC spoke to Debbie Walsh about the impacts on the 2018 midterms and how this year might compare to 1992's Year of the Woman. As Walsh put it... "It feels different this time."
March 2019: Register Now for Flagship Ready to Run® Conference
Ready to Run® New Jersey is officially set for Friday, March 15th - Saturday, March 16th! Ready to Run® is our annual non-partisan campaign training program designed to encourage women to run for elective office, position themselves for appointive office, work on a campaign, or get involved in public life in other ways.  To find out more about the program, click here , or just...

A Seat at the Table Book Talk on October 29th 
On October 29th at 6:00 pm, Kelly Dittmar, Kira Sanbonmatsu, and Susan J. Carroll will appear for a discussion of their new book A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen's Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters at the Eagleton Institute of Politics on the Rutgers-New Brunswick campus. The book, which draws from interviews with over three-quarters of the women in the 114th Congress, tells the story of how women officeholders affect the institutions in which they serve, from policy priorities to organizational behavior.

The talk will be from 6:00 to 7:30 pm and will be preceded by a reception at 5:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public. Register here to attend.
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Ready to Run® Affiliate Programs around the Country
The midterms are  just around the corner, but women are taking advantage of Ready to Run® campaign training programs around the country and setting themselves up for campaigns to come. Ready to Run® Indiana will hold a training workshop on November 10th on the campus of Marian University - register here to join the session. On December 6th, Ready to Run® Ohio holds their campaign training event on the Ohio State University campus; find out more and register here. Finally, Real Women Run in Utah holds its Winter Training at the YWCA in Salt Lake City on January 19th, 2019. Learn more here. Other programs around the country will be announced soon; check our Ready to Run® National Network map for updates.
Speaking of Ready to Run®... Campaign Careers Workshop on October 20th 
Ready to Run® will host a campaign training workshop on Saturday, October 20th from 9am to 3:30pm at the Eagleton Institute of Politics in New Brunswick. The workshop, Political Campaigns for Career Women: An Operative's Guide to the Industry, will be presented by strategic communications expert Eva Pusateri, and provides an introduction to fast-paced, exciting political careers many people don't even know exist. Whether you aim to support candidates, issues, or your political party, you can turn your enthusiasm into a power career. 
Hear about A Seat at the Table at the Collingswood Book Festival  
Kelly Dittmar will appear at the Collingswood Book Festival in Collingswood, NJ alongside former New Jersey governor James J. Florio on the panel "Politics Past, Present, and Future". Dittmar will discuss her book,  A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen's Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters, during a broader political discussion to be moderated by Rutgers-Camden professor Shauna Shames, author of the book Out of the Running: Why Millennials Reject Political Careers and Why It Matters . The panel takes place on October 16th at 11:00am, outside of the Collingswood Library. For more information about the Collingswood Book Festival and Dittmar's appearance, check out their schedule here .
Following the revelations of Christine Blasey Ford, the authors of A Seat at the Table, Kelly Dittmar, Kira Sanbonmatsu, and Susan J. Carroll, penned an op-ed for CNN, in which they applied the insight gleaned from the research to the unfolding Ford-Kavanaugh situation. There were no women on the Senate Judiciary Committee when Anita Hill testified in 1991, and, though there are four women on the committee in 2018, there are none among the majority GOP members. They then move on to discuss the ways in which women alter and re-focus governing, from addressing overlooked issues to taking results-oriented approaches, before finally pointing out that greater representation leads to greater representation, whether through organization or inspiration.

A new book released today, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics, delves into the political potential of women of color, their history as a power base, and the necessity that they take greater control of their political power and build networks to support women of color as political professionals and candidates. Learn more about the book in this USA Today op-ed published by the authors, Donna Brazile, Yolanda Caraway, Leah Daughtry, and Minyon Moore.

Last week, NPR published a series about women in politics in 2018, She Votes. The week-long series had episodes and articles focusing on the ways that a Trump backlash is helping to fuel women's role in the 2018 midterms, whether the record numbers of women running is a blip or a new reality, the fundraising gap between men and women, and how women in 2018 are altering the ways that women present themselves as candidates.

Lastly, you've followed CAWP through the midterm primaries, you know all the records that were broken and all the milestones made and in the making... so what's on the horizon for all these women candidates? The Washington Post has tracked women as they won their primaries in 2018 and now has compiled the list into an infographic that details their chances in November, from the sure shots to the long shots. We're keeping it bookmarked.

Center for American Women and Politics
Eagleton Institute of Politics
Rutgers University | New Brunswick
191 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8557
(848) 932-9384 - Fax: (732) 932-6778