Ali Vitali’s new book explores what it means for women to be ‘Electable’
Vitali argues that “everything is a women’s issue,” and that “as more women run for president, more issues become women’s issues.”
Ali Vitali has always come across as scrappy, determined and thorough in her live hits as an NBC News political correspondent. But with the release of her book, Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House…Yet, Vitali has accelerated her trajectory as a future leader in the world of political journalism.
Vitali’s journalism career took off in 2016 when the young reporter was assigned to cover the Trump campaign. Taking lessons from that contentious race, Vitali returned to her role as a campaign embed four years later, following and reporting on candidates like Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar in the race to become the 2020 Democratic nominee.
The decision to pen Electable came in the wake of the end of Warren’s campaign, as Vitali and the rest of America shifted from what she described as one of the most diverse fields of candidates in a nomination race, to ending up with a nominee that looked exactly like every president who came before him.
Describing Kamala Harris as “someone who is both venerated and also criticized,” Vitali wrote about the unfair expectations thrust upon the vice president, noting that “what Harris embodies and normalizes, though, also other-izes her.”
“There was almost an unfair expectation that because she looked different and had a different lived experience than all of the vice presidents that came before her that she would almost remake this role,” Vitali said in an interview with The Blueprint. “And that’s certainly not what we should ask from any vice president.”
Sequingate and ‘women’s issues’
Drawing from her countless hours dedicated to covering candidates on the campaign trail, Vitali reflects on one experience that reaffirmed just how many double standards that both women in politics and women in journalism face on a daily basis.
Covering then-presidential candidate Harris at a South Carolina thrift store on Lady Street, Vitali couldn’t have envisioned that an exchange about a sparkly jacket—dubbed Sequingate—would lead to coverage questioning the legitimacy of both Harris as a candidate and her as a reporter.
“To me, it was a reminder of the invisible pitfalls that female candidates can sometimes face,” she said, noting local business visits are regular practice in politics, from municipal all the way to presidential. “It struck me that it took a female candidate and a female press corps on a stereotypically female task, which is shopping, to warrant that kind of criticism.”
Vitali wrote about the media’s tendency to dismiss women in politics as simply “tackling women’s issues,” pointing out that Harris would often respond to questions about abortion services on the campaign trail by saying, “I’m so glad you want to talk about the economy.”
A critical moment on the 2020 campaign trail for Vitali occurred as Warren faced a barrage of skepticism when she candidly opened up about being fired as a teacher for getting pregnant. And while many in the media questioned Warren’s allegation, Vitali aptly noted that “there wasn’t a piece of paper that said ‘Elizabeth Warren has been fired because she’s pregnant.’”
Explaining that reporters often gloss over the variety of issues that go under the umbrella of “women’s issues,” Vitali argues that “everything is a women’s issue,” and that “as more women run for president, more issues become women’s issues.”
The road to 2024 and an act of strength
Vitali admitted that she’s “really looking forward to 2024,” despite the fact that “the process is still, frankly, governed on both sides by older white men.” While Biden and Trump appear to be frontrunners for president in 2024, Vitali believes that a woman will likely be on the national nomination ballot, pointing to a possible challenge by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney for the Republican nomination.
“I think that, more broadly, it’s a sign that we're not going to see presidential cycles after this where it's only white men running,” she said.
And even if Cheney doesn’t challenge Trump, Vitali isn’t convinced that the former president will pick Mike Pence as his running-mate, pointing to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and former White House Press Secretary and Republican nominee for governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as possible replacements.
For Vitali, the biggest shift and greatest sign of progress that occurred in Electable revolved around Biden’s decision to select a woman as vice president. While the move wasn’t exactly novel—as John McCain and Walter Mondale both selected female running mates—Vitali pointed out that this was the first time a woman was elevated to the vice presidency as an act of strength, while the others came from positions of political weakness.
As a federal politics reporter, the most relatable part of Electable came in the midst of Sequingate, as Vitali managed to articulate one of the hardest questions a journalist must ask themselves in the age of disinformation and coordinated attacks against women in journalism: “We were calling it out, but were we also amplifying the very issue in the first place?”
Ultimately, if readers take just one word away from Vitali’s book, it’s the final word of the subtitle on the cover… Yet.