Page 104 of See You Next Tuesday

Chapter 16

Transcript of Work the Polls podcast, episode #18

Air date: October 23

Cat: Hi, this is Cat.

Ruby: And this is Ruby!

Cat: And this is Work the Polls, where we take a weekly look at what’s happening with women in politics.

Ruby: And what’s happening this week is…holy shit, Cat, are we about to get a woman president?

Cat: It’s way too soon to speculate, but boy, it kinda feels that way??

Ruby: Okay, so just in case you didn’t see last night’s presidential debate, OH MY GOD, IT RULED.

Cat: And not to be too like “oh we’re lady podcasters talking about lady things,” but can we start with what Senator Jo Sessego wore to the debate?

Ruby: We can, and I think we must.

Cat: Obviously, Senator Sessego has been a progressive folk hero for years, but she’s not super well known outside people who are very politically engaged. So in a lot of ways, this debate last night was her first time stepping onto a national stage—and she walks out in this vivid pink pantsuit. It was like fuchsia? It was radiant. She looked incredible. All the men were wearing black or navy, and she looked like this shining beacon.

Ruby: So then one of the moderators was Ruth Minkow from CNN, aka the world’s hottest lesbian, and Ruth goes, “Wow, Senator Sessego, that’s quite an ensemble.” And Senator Sessego responds, “I didn’t want the voters to forget I was a woman.”

Cat: I lost my mind. I like, physically lost it.

Ruby: Can you tell us why, Cat?

Cat: I think—you know, look. It’s hard to be a woman seeking power in any field, and that’s especially true for women of color like Senator Sessego, and it’s maybe true in politics most of all. And to see her own it like that? Without an ounce of apology? With all this pride? It really moved me.

Ruby: And the thing for me is, it wasn’t an isolated stunt. Every single question that came back to her, Senator Sessego would bring it back to women’s experiences, to the social safety net, to the economy, to healthcare, to education. Her knowledge is so expansive, but she always brings it back to real people. She never lets you forget who she’s running for and what she’s about.

Cat: And that tracks with her personal story—that she was a middle school teacher whose students convinced her to run for city council. It felt like this really American story. It made you believe that the best ideas we have about ourselves as a country could actually be true.

Ruby: The reaction to her debate performance was explosive. The media pretty much universally declared her the winner. She flew directly from the debate to go be live on The Tonight Show—

Cat: Which probably reached a bigger audience than the debate did, let’s be real.

Ruby: Totally! And she crushed that too. She was funny and personable, and she made this great appeal to people to get involved in this race. She had this really memorable line, where she said, “When you feel like you can’t recognize our country, you have to make it look more like you.”

Cat: Chills. Literal chills.

Ruby: The Sessego campaign said last night was their biggest fundraising haul ever. They raised close to two million dollars online and got thousands of new volunteers. Online searches for “Jo Sessego” spiked, and I hope I’m not getting too far out over my skis here, Cat, but it feels like we’ve entered a whole new era in this campaign?

Cat: I agree. We’re still three months out from the Iowa caucus, and Andrew Wheeler is far and away the odds-on favorite to win this nomination. But this is starting to feel like a real race now. And it’s starting to feel like a race Jo Sessego could actually win.

“This is a disaster.”

“We don’t know that.” Gabe kept his voice even.

“Eight points?” Lev tapped the briefing packet in front of him. “In a week, she gained eight points?”

The mood had been tense in Wheeler headquarters all week since the debate, but the new batch of polls that hit the press this morning had made things exponentially worse. Gabe had been talking in circles with the media consultants for nearly an hour, trying to figure out their next move.

“It could be a blip, a bounce from the debate,” Gabe reasoned. “And she’s making headway with undecideds, but our numbers haven’t moved. We shouldn’t do anything rash.”

“No, but we don’t want to be caught with our dicks in the wind either.” Hal Robbins was the crankiest and most powerful of the consultants. He was seen in the party as a wartime consigliere; he’d advised every Democratic presidential nominee for the last two decades.