WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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Rise to Run is a national organization working at the grass roots level to install confidence and skill in young women with political aspirations. The organization’s local branch held an information session last week that drew a crowd of 45 women in a range of ages. WFHB Assistant News Director Sarah Vaughan attended last week’s session, and talked with a few of the attendees afterward about their aspirations.
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Emma Cannon has long dreamed of working in politics but until recently she hasn’t thought of herself as confident enough to pursue it.
“When you’re a kid there are always, like, little boys saying I’m gonna be president when I grow up,” Cannon said. “I thought, well, I can’t do that. But when I saw Hilary Clinton, I thought, omigosh, I CAN do that.”
A recent high school grad, Cannon attended last week’s information session for Rise to Run, an organization working to help young, progressive minded women run for office.
Rise to Run’s approach is to build a community of young women at the grassroots level and train them, providing an advisory council of experienced women to mentor them along the way.
Cannon said she’s looking to Rise to Run to give her the confidence she needs to enter the political sphere:
“I want to be able to speak confidently in political engagements, I want to gain the skills, and a network of people that I can really communicate with and learn from, so that when I do eventually run for office I will have all these skills in place.”
The numbers for women running for office is dismal nationally. Just 20 percent of congresspersons are women, and only 25 percent of women hold state elected positions. Indiana has sent less than 10 women to Congress.
Last May, Rise to Run named Bloomington one of its pilot hubs. Rachel Guglielmo, a local Rise to Run coordinator, said she thinks there are many young women like Emma Cannon.
“We recognize that already in high school, young women are receiving implicit and sometimes explicit messages that they are less able or less capable to engage in politics,” Guglielmo said. “We think that it’s important to start young, building their confidence, and building their skills, and their sense that political engagement is a viable option for them.”
IU graduate Lily Ross has a head start on building confidence and skill after volunteering on two campaigns. She says advocacy was ever present in her mind but she never considered working in politics until she volunteered on Elizabeth’s Warren’s 2012 Senate campaign. She said the experience gave her focus and energy.
“I think I went through literally every major they offered… and then as soon as I stepped into a campaign office it all just clicked,” Ross said. “There’s a very electrifying feeling in campaign offices, organized chaos and it just made sense to me. I really fell in love with it.”
Both Ross and Cannon hope to make it to the national level of Rise to Run grooming, which begins in January.
Monroe County Treasurer Jessica McClellan was one of several more experienced women who attended last week’s meeting with the goal of mentoring “risers.” McClellan was 37 when she launched her campaign for county treasurer. It was her first campaign for elected office. A self-described introvert, McClellan wants young women to know they don’t have to be extroverts to run for office.
“We need all kinds of people to run for office,” McClellan said, “because once you win your election, it’s a completely different job. And your personality may be better suited to doing the job you want to run for than, say, an extrovert who is really good at talking all day.”
