When Women Win

January 25, 2016
Malcolm, the founder of EMILY’s List, delivers a lively, fast-paced history of the influential political action committee that helps elect pro-choice, Democratic women. Drawing on interviews with Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, and others, she highlights the organization’s impact on elections over the past 30 years, most notably by giving selected candidates donations early in their campaigns (EMILY is an acronym for “early money is like yeast”). The book covers EMILY’s List’s evolution, since its 1985 founding, from a fund-raising organization to a “multi-pronged, full-service political operation” with three million members that has helped elect 110 Democratic women to the House and 19 to the Senate, including Warren. Malcolm also emphasizes the dramatic effect of Anita Hill’s testimony on the female electorate and the importance of women voters to the Democratic Party. The book shows that EMILY’s List’s biggest contribution may be to make women in Congress seem so familiar that voters are now far more likely to judge women on their records and character than on their gender. Agent: David Kuhn, Kuhn Projects.

February 15, 2016

Political activist Malcolm realized in 1982 that no Democratic woman had been elected in her own right to the U.S. Senate. To the author's dismay, that same year a highly qualified candidate in Missouri, Harriet Woods, lost a very close race because her campaign ran out of money in October, just shy of Election Day. The Democratic Party refused to help because they doubted that a woman could win. In 1985 Malcolm and a small group of like-minded women founded EMILY's (Early Money Is Like Yeast) List to change that dynamic and show the good-old-boy network that female candidates could raise money and accept important posts at the highest levels of government. The organization collected funds indirectly for candidates by asking donors to join the list for a nominal fee then encouraging them to make contributions directly to individuals the group had vetted. The book provides a detailed history of the formation of EMILY's List and its evolution to become the best-funded source of campaign finances for pro-choice Democratic women front-runners as well as a resource for training and fundraising development for aspiring candidates. VERDICT Malcolm provides excellent behind-the-scenes stories about women's campaign experiences that prove When Women Win, everybody wins. Women's studies, political science, and history scholars as well as political junkies will be glad they read this book.--Jill Ortner, SUNY Buffalo Libs.

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