Tom's first guest today is Amanda Litman, a Democratic operative who worked on the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, and the gubernatorial campaign of Charlie Christ in Florida in 2014.

In 2017, on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, she and a friend, Ross Morales Rocketto, founded a political action committee called Run for Something, dedicated to helping young, first-time candidates navigate the vagaries of running for elective office.

There are plenty of offices to choose from. By Litman’s count, there are about a half a million elected positions in the United States. Litman advises people who are running for their State Legislatures and Congress, but she also takes under her wing people running for school boards, library boards, water-abatement boards and a host of other local offices that can directly and significantly affect communities large and small, urban and rural, red and blue.

Amanda Litman also hosts the Run for Something podcast, and she wrote a book, a how-to guide for people who want to leave the sidelines and jump into the fray. It’s called Run for Something: A Real-Talk Guide to Fixing the System Yourself. Amanda Litman joins us on Zoom from Brooklyn, New York.

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