Dear Madam President by Jennifer Palmieri Book Summary
Dear Madam President, An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World by Jennifer Palmieri
Recommendation
Political insider Jennifer Palmieri offers a moving tribute to leaders she’s learned from and admired in this poignant insider memoir of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Palmieri writes in the form of an open letter offering advice to the first woman who becomes president of the United States in the future, whoever she may be. Palmieri was Clinton’s communications director and had a front row seat to the unique craziness of the 2016 election season. She draws her eclectic – and, fair warning, partisan – memories around processing her sense of loss and considering what it means to survive and thrive in politics as a woman.
Take-Aways
- “When the unimaginable happens, imagine what else may be possible.”
- “Brace yourself: Nothing draws fire like a woman moving forward.”
- “Speak up – your voice is needed.”
- “It’s your world and you can cry if you want to.”
- “Keep your head (and your heart) during a storm. You need both to steer the ship to safety.”
- “Show us what you have been through. It tells us what we can survive.”
- “Don’t search for your role in his story – write your own.”
- “Even when you lose, refuse to be defeated.”
- “We are bound together. Now we need to unite.”
Dear Madam President Summary
“When the unimaginable happens, imagine what else may be possible.”
Jennifer Palmieri felt devastated the day after the November 2016 presidential election. It wasn’t just losing, and it wasn’t coming to a stop after months of continuous movement. Palmieri had to deal with her sister, Dana, who lay sick and dying in Houston.
“She could feel what was happening, all the forces – seen and unseen, cosmic and earthly – that were lining up against her.”
Palmieri had joined Hillary Clinton’s presidential election campaign after being part of the White House communications team for President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama. Post-election, she took a break from politics. She felt let down by the rules she and other women had always played by. Today, women play by their own rules and win.
“Brace yourself: Nothing draws fire like a woman moving forward.”
Palmieri disliked people lauding Clinton as a “gracious loser,” rather than as a woman ambitious enough to run for president. Palmieri had thought Americans could elect a woman, especially one so qualified. Clinton tried to warn her.
The women’s movement is relatively young. Clinton’s mother was born the day Congress gave women the right to vote. Misogyny was the biggest obstacle to Clinton’s election. Decades of political attacks against her and her husband hurt, but “pervasive gender bias” motivated those who passionately hated Clinton.The Secret Service uses the phrase “move forward, draw fire” when that’s the only option for handling internal disagreement. The phrase was apt for campaign staffers, and for Clinton as well. When a woman moves forward, she draws fire. Clinton broke barriers, blazed her own trail and confounded people because they couldn’t compare her to anyone else. Future women presidents should expect similar or worse attacks.
“Our culture still tends to characterize ambitious women as pushy, conniving and selfish. This is not unique to politics – it’s true for women in any walk of life.”
The press never trusted an intelligent, capable woman in a powerful position. People would say, “There’s something about her I just don’t like.” Congress called Clinton to testify, and a foreign power actively targeted her candidacy. Republican nominee Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Julian Assange and James Comey piled on in unprecedented ways. Yet despite sexual assault allegations against Trump, who yelled “lock her up” at rallies and declared he wouldn’t accept the election results if Clinton won, many voters supported him. One reason was that Clinton posed an “existential threat” to patriarchal norms.
“Speak up – your voice is needed.”
While on Obama’s staff, Palmieri spent time in the Oval Office, 10 Downing Street, the Kremlin and Tokyo’s Imperial Palace. Obama kept stress levels low in meetings and encouraged people to speak honestly. Still, as his deputy communications director, Palmieri realized the first time she was in a room with the president that she would have to up her game.
“If you act like you belong in the room, people will believe you do. If you act like your opinion matters, others will, too.”
Other people may be better than you, but they’re not that much better. You’re the one in the room. Do your job.
“It’s your world and you can cry if you want to.”
Clinton’s staff adopted a stoic nod to acknowledge painful information. Such stoicism is how women succeed in a male-dominated world. It proves they’re tough and suits their “sense of duty.” Women try to be superwomen, no matter the costs, because that’s what society expects, and it’s what they expect of themselves.
“There’s something else in the nod from a woman. An acquiescence. A need for approval. If this is the hoop, I will jump through it.”
Men built the professional world and find comfort within it. Women once adopted men’s rules to try to fit in, but the world belongs to women now, too. Women must update the rules of the game to empower themselves. They should “nod less and cry more.” Tears demonstrate powerful emotion. Why mute that?
After the election, Palmieri had to describe the campaign in a public forum. She planned to be professionally neutral, but when she shared her opinion that the opposing campaign had used race-baiting to divide the country, tears came to her eyes, and her voice wavered. Later, she decided she didn’t care. She had said what she wanted to say. Think of all the good and true things people don’t say because they fear saying it with too much emotion. What a waste. Staffers called Palmieri’s office “the crying room,” a place people could come and cry without anyone judging them. Women can be emotional and still strong.
“Keep your head (and your heart) during a storm. You need both to steer the ship to safety.”
In times of crisis, leaders need to stay calm and focus their teams on solutions. From the leadership examples of the Clintons and Obama, Palmieri learned how important heart can be in times of crisis. When the HealthCare.gov website didn’t work, it damaged the President Obama’s standing and his signature legislative achievement. He told the press office team he expected them to try improve the news coverage, but he knew and wanted them to know that the stories weren’t going to improve until the site worked. Obama’s ability to see the problem clearly was an enormous relief to his staff.
When the court acquitted George Zimmerman, the Florida man who killed unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012, the verdict caused pain and anger, especially for African-Americans. The country needed to hear from the president. The press office sought a worthy venue for his message to the African-American community. Obama felt he needed to speak not to them but for them, as a black man. He knew he could have been Trayvon Martin at 17.
“No pollster would have advised him to make a speech like that, but it was something all of the country needed to hear.”
When the FBI reopened the case about Hillary Clinton’s email just days before the election, she responded by discussing the charges daily with the press and at her rallies. Her staff convinced Clinton that she didn’t need to talk about it – she’d already said everything there was to say. Better to stick to the big issues, they advised. That’s what Clinton did, but it left her uneasy, and it turned out to be a mistake. Clinton had a sense of what the country wanted to hear from her but, against her better judgment, didn’t say it.
“Show us what you have been through. It tells us what we can survive.”
Being president ages everyone. The future first woman president will pay the “pink tax,” the extra hour women require to do their makeup and hair. Her face will acquire wrinkles and “battle scars,” which will comfort other women because she survived.
“You, more than all the men who preceded you, will be judged on your appearance and how attractive you are.”
Palmieri took a picture of herself on her 50th birthday, the last day she saw her sister before her death. Palmieri felt like hell, and had been through hell. Her face showed it. She hopes the meaning and blessings she acquired on the journey show as well.
“Don’t search for your role in his story – write your own.”
Nobody wrote women into the history books, but women were present as history was made. The US Declaration of Independence and the Constitution don’t mention women. Imagine what the world would be like if women had equal say in politics and culture. Women don’t grow up reading about women making history, so they believe their stories are unimportant. Even Hillary Clinton didn’t think she had an interesting life story. She grew up comfortably middle class. She graduated from college and law school and then met Bill Clinton – and “the rest is his story.” His personal history of rising from a small town in Arkansas to the presidency inspired Americans. Obama’s story reflected the American ideal that a black man could become president.
“It’s not enough for your life to be hard – it has to make sense to us, we have to recognize the struggle, it has to tell us a larger story we want told about America.”
Hillary Clinton was making history, so it was hard to appreciate her story as it unfolded. She decided to emphasize her alignment with Democratic presidents of the past, like Franklin Roosevelt, who took on and solved big problems. Unfortunately, many people didn’t want to hear her. She had to be passionate, but she couldn’t shout. She had to look strong, but also show vulnerability, and people said her voice was “shrill.” After she wrote her post-campaign book What Happened, people listened to Clinton. Many lamented that “this Hillary” wasn’t the one who ran for president. But she was always the same person. Now Clinton’s struggles are a part of history. Her lessons will help the woman who finally becomes president.
“Even when you lose, refuse to be defeated.”
People have been trying to run Hillary Clinton off the national stage for years. When Steve Bannon announced a “scorched Earth” of relentless attacks against her, Clinton’s campaign understood that Trump’s goal was to deflate voter enthusiasm and demoralize the campaign. With the Benghazi hearings, WikiLeaks, a tough primary and the FBI investigation, Palmieri reminded fellow staffers of the frustration Republicans must feel when they couldn’t take Clinton down. She lost the race in the Electoral College, despite leading the popular vote by three million, but she never felt defeated.
“Hillary never cowered in the face of attacks or failed to call out hate. And after she lost, she refused to stop fighting for the issues and people she cared about.”
During tough times, Clinton focuses on what she needed to accomplish that day. She has plenty of fortitude. And when life handed her a loss, Clinton mourned it and found a way to move forward.
“We are bound together. Now we need to unite.”
The 2016 election was a reckoning for the United States. It reflected deep divisions that had built up over decades.
“It wasn’t going to be simply a ‘change election’ or a referendum on Obama or even an election about the economy. It was about what kind of country we are going to be.”
One Friday in June 2015, Palmieri felt that real change was happening. The Supreme Court affirmed the Affordable Care Act and gay marriage. After a white racist murdered nine black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC progress seemed to be underway to remove the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s capitol. That morning, Obama sang “Amazing Grace” at the service for the people killed at Mother Emanuel.
However, Trump’s announcement for president weeks earlier had cited a country in decline. His words resonated with many voters. Bill and Hillary Clinton saw deep disaffection within the electorate, and it unsettled them. They’d never experienced hopelessness and anger from voters. They asked people on the campaign to read Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer, about the rise of authoritarian leaders.
People’s frustrations don’t come out during a crisis. They come out later. The United States was reacting to 15 years of tumultuous change, including the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, war, recession, growing economic inequality, demographic change, digital transitions and climate change. What unifies Americans in times of division is the belief that the country can be better. The pain one group feels spills over, and everyone feels it. Based on the understanding that they are bound together as Americans, people can choose to unite. The president must be everyone’s president, listen to divergent concerns, and include everybody. It’s the right kind of job for a woman.
“Don’t wait for permission or an invitation or expect to find your place in someone else’s story. Jump into whatever it is you want to do.”
Celebrate your age, experience and viewpoint. Understand that men should treat you as an equal, but if they don’t, ignore them. Women have intelligence and ability. They need to imagine better possibilities, including being president of the United States.
About the Author
Jennifer Palmieri directed communications for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016 and worked as President Barack Obama’s communications director.
