We’ve been inspired by a number of books and want to share some of what we’ve been reading. We’d love to hear what has inspired or educated you with regard to elected office!
Eva Pusateri is an experienced campaign consultant who has written this practical, helpful guide in the hope that it will help train and elect leaders “who are less interested in right and left, and more interested in right and wrong, more specifically, doing what’s right and fixing what’s wrong.” The guide is packed with advice that comes from her decades of experience; the Candidate Questionnaire is a great place to start if you’re considering a run and trying to determine if you’d be a good candidate.
In March of 2020, we were intrigued by a book review in the New York Times that described Adrienne Martini’s book, SOMEBODY’S GOTTA DO IT: Why Cursing at the News Won’t Save the Nation, but Your Name on a Local Ballot Can as “50 percent memoir, 50 percent advice manual and 100 percent heart.” Fast forward to March 2022 and Healing Politics hosted Adrienne for a virtual book talk. Her book is laugh-out-loud funny, inspiring, and packed with helpful information and advice.
We heard Kate Black, one of the authors of Represent: The Woman’s Guide to Running for Office and Changing the World (published by Workman Publishing in 2019 ) when she spoke at Yale in 2019. We were so impressed we asked her to do a book talk as part of the Candidate School that was planned for the following year. Although the Candidate School was canceled, we were pleased to host June Diane Raphael & Kate Black for a Book event in July 2021. – it’s a great book – informational and a workbook all in one.
Lois Capps was working as school nurse when her husband Walter successfully challenged an incumbent and won a seat in Congress in 1996. When he suddenly died 10 months into his term, Capps decided to run for the open seat— “not to continue her husband’s legacy, but to start her own.” (https://history.house.gov/Oral-History/Women/Representative-Capps/)
In her oral history, part of “A Century of Women in Congress,” a History, Art and Archives project, she reflects on, among other topics, the evolution of women as political leaders and role models for aspiring legislators.
Duke political Scientist Nicholas Carnes has been a big supporter of Healing Politics since we first reached out to him. In this book, he shares his research on why so few working-class Americans become politicians and his ideas about what we can do about it.
Amanda Litman co-founded Run for Something, a PAC that helps recruit and support young, diverse progressives who are running in down-ballot races. She wrote this “real-talk guide” targeted at that audience.
We created slides that educators, stakeholders, and associations can add to presentations that introduce Healing Politics.
Click the button below to download the slides to use them in your next presentation.
We created slides that educators, stakeholders, and associations can add to presentations that introduce Healing Politics.
Click the button below to download the slides to use them in your next presentation.
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