Virginia Davies and Willard Taylor, who are both lawyers and energetic organizers on behalf of Democratic causes, opened their triplex penthouse in the West Village the other evening to host Karen Middleton, the president of Emerge, a San Francisco-based organization that offers training and support for Democratic women running for office. Middleton is considering starting a program in New York, and she wanted to gauge local interest. Sandwiches had been laid out in the dining room; in the handsomely appointed living room, chairs had been arranged in a circle, as if for a high-end consciousness-raising session.
About two dozen women showed up, including a couple of lawyers, a pediatrician, a financial adviser, and a branding consultant. Most of them were dressed in the professional woman’s default uniform of the moment: a smart knit dress in a dark color, worn with knee-high black leather boots. “We’re about helping women get into office, stay in office, and like it,” Middleton, who was until recently a state representative in Colorado, said. She characterized this meeting as “a first date. We’re having a conversation about whether this would work. We don’t want to come in if you think the ground is covered.”
Middleton explained what Emerge offers: a seven-month-long program, conducted on weekends, that involves media training, advising candidates on labor relations, and taking candidates through the convention process. “Fund-raising is key,” she said. “We build in call time.” She went on, “Women think they can’t do it. I say, ‘Look, you got yourself up, and you got yourself ready, and you made at least two lunches and got two kids to school and met with the plumber and then got to work. If you know how to do that, you can run for office.’ ”
Emerge differs from the White House Project, a nonpartisan group that encourages women to participate in electoral politics. “I love the White House Project, but I have no interest in running Mama Grizzlies Lite,” Middleton said. “I want to work with progressive women.” Brette McSweeney, the executive director of Eleanor’s Legacy, which supports Democratic women candidates in New York State, said she welcomed the efforts of Emerge. “The end goal is that you and I are out of a job,” she said to Middleton.
Among the attendees were several who had already run for office, unsuccessfully. Jennifer Maertz, a lawyer who this past November sought to become a state senator from eastern Long Island, wanted to know if Emerge would “facilitate networking”—most assuredly, was the answer—while Natasha Holiday, who in a recent bid to become a district leader in Flatbush lost by a mere hundred and six votes, wanted Emerge to help get more women “in the pipeline.” (Holiday was beaten by another woman—a sorority sister—who had managed to get into the pipeline a little ahead of her.) Christine Quinn, the Speaker of the New York City Council, stopped by to give some words of encouragement. “I am often asked, ‘How did you get this done?’ and I say, ‘Well, I just decided we would,’ ” she said. “Women bring that attitude of ‘O.K., this is it, this is the show, we’ve got to make it work.’ ”
One of the few men present, a retirement-planning consultant named William Arnone, said that he supports only female candidates. “My gender has had its chance,” he said. He asked whether Kathleen Rice, who ran for Attorney General in New York in the recent election but was defeated by Eric Schneiderman, might have made more of her gender in her campaign. “I asked her campaign, ‘What’s Rice’s women’s strategy?’ and they said, ‘She is her women’s strategy,’ ” Arnone said, with evident chagrin at the loss.
At this, Virginia Davies, the evening’s hostess, piped up: Schneiderman had done a great job, she said, of indicating his progressive values. “What I heard about Eric was ‘Yes, we have a woman, but the man, in terms of issues women care about, is better,’ ” Davies said. A few weeks ago, she and her husband had hosted Schneiderman’s victory party in that very apartment. “My own view of what happened is that gender doesn’t trump everything,” she said. ♦
