Skip to main content
This program is over. Hope you didn't miss it!

Madame President: What Will It Take? with Capitol Hill Correspondent Ali Vitali

In-Person and Online Program

Evening Lecture/Seminar

Wednesday, September 7, 2022 - 6:45 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET
Code: 1L0483
Location:
In-person Ticket Holders: Ripley Center
1100 Jefferson Dr SW
Metro: Smithsonian (Mall exit)
Online Ticket Holders: Zoom
Select your Tickets
$20
Online - Member
$25
Online - Nonmember

Ali Vitali

Registration Advisory: This program has multiple ticket options depending on your choice to attend in person at the S. Dillon Ripley Center or as an online program using Zoom. Before you register, please refer to our in-person vs. online program procedural documentation to learn about our current terms and conditions.

Following the 2020 race unfold as an NBC News correspondent, Ali Vitali witnessed up-close the way that our most recent presidential election was unique—not simply for how the incumbent conducted himself, but for the ways in which the field, rich with Democrats from all kinds of backgrounds, was both modern but also more of the same.

With more female candidates than ever before, this was a history-making race, and yet these women—most of them incredibly qualified with decades of public service on their resumes—dealt once again with a different level of scrutiny than their male counterparts.

Drawing on her new book Electable, Vitali examines the treatment of Hillary Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro, Shirley Chisholm, and those on the right as well. Grappling with ideas around the “likeability” and “electability” issues, as well as fundraising hurdles many female candidates face, Vitali considers the same questions she and so many have been grappling with for decades, especially since Hillary Clinton’s devastating defeat in 2016: Why is it so hard for a woman to be taken seriously as a presidential contender? What will it take for men and women to be held to the same standard? What happens next?

In conversation with Andrea Mitchell, NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports," join Vitali as she addresses these lingering issues from that presidential race with specific, behind-the-scenes details and gets to the bottom of why we still did not cross that final hurdle.

Copies of Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House…Yet (Dey Street Books) are available for purchase.

Book Sale Information

General Information

  • Update: Registration for in-person tickets will end by 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday, September 7.
  • Registration for online tickets will end by 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday, September 7.

American Women's History Initiative