 Hello, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to the Straight Talk for Macho. I'm Bruce Wilson, Executive Director of Service Render Incorporated. And Straight Talk for Macho is one of our many programs that we have. Before we get started, talk to our wonderful guests. I want to make some announcements about our programs. So our programs are what we're doing now. We're having a reopening of our art gallery called Art So Wonderful, located at the University Mall. And it's April 29th. We're going to have orders and live entertainment. Some incredible people are going to be speaking about how important it is to have these type of outlets of art galleries and live entertainment through our Vermont local art music program. And so I'm very excited. And then April 29th, we're also going to have an event in the Center Court at the University Mall. It's to celebrate and thank youth for being on boards. We created youth home boards in 2003. And they sit on the police commission, planning commission, and school boards. So we just revised our resolution with the City of Burlington. And so these events that we're doing, one is tonight. You'll probably get to see it. It's going to be at the City Hall, Cantos Auditorium. And youth is going to be performing. And we have some dignitaries to speak about how important it is to be on these city boards. And so we're very excited. And so let's get right to our show. And so our guest today is Elaine. Yes. Hi, Bruce. From Emerge Vermont. Elaine Haney from Emerge Vermont. That's right. Help me out here. And so how are you today? I'm doing great. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me on. Thank you for coming. That's my pleasure. Absolutely. And our co-host is Jenna Walker. Hello, Jenna. Hi. Student at St. Michael's College. And we love St. Michael's College and all our colleges around the state. But St. Michael College is very important to us in liberal arts college. We've done a lot of things there. We've got to go to Elliott Hall and the real jabs, the 300s field, and working with students in all kinds of ways. So thank you. So Elaine, so many professional people that's entering into some type of election has went through your program. Yeah. Emerge Vermont trains Democratic women to run for office. So we offer instruction on all the different aspects of campaigning from field work to fundraising, messaging and budgeting and campaign finance and all that kind of information that you need to run a successful campaign to get elected. And so we've had in the past, we started in 2013. We were founded by Governor Madeline Cunan and a collection of amazing Vermont women. And we have currently, by the end of this session that we're training right now, we'll have 176 alumni. Wow, that's a lot. Boy, I love Madeline Cunan. She's so distinguished. She is, and she is just an absolute role model for any woman who wants to get involved in local government. She started at the most basic level in her town and moved her way up and broke a lot of barriers for women in government. And unfortunately, Vermont has not seen as much advancement in that area as we'd like to see. There's only been 14 women who serve in statewide office in our history. And Madeline is two of them. She served as lieutenant governor and as governor. So we are really hopeful that the graduates from our program are going to continue breaking those barriers and entering offices where women haven't been traditionally represented before. And so what's the application process? How do women get involved in the program? So we have a training that is about 70 plus hours. And at the moment it goes from January to April. So it has moved around in the past. But the current session is January to April and this coming August we will open the application again for the class of 2023. And it will go from January to April of 2023. And how many people? Generally, our current class has 24 women in it. Generally, we try to go no higher than 25 people. We also offer smaller trainings occasionally, not on a regular basis. Sometimes like a weekend boot camp or some evening webinars as well. But those are sort of more spontaneous. The signature training that we do happens every year. So out of 70 hours, that's a lot. That's a lot of time. And so are the classes like the weekends or evenings or mornings? Both actually. So with COVID, we learned that we have to do a lot of this online. And in fact, I'm a graduate of the 2021 class. And that was done entirely online because of COVID. So we met for very long Zoom sessions on weekends. But this year we're doing a hybrid version. So we've had several Saturdays and then a bunch of evenings online. And the last couple of Saturdays have been in person. And the evenings online are three hour sessions. And so we have had five Saturdays. And I believe we've had, I've lost count of the days, it was a total of 13 different sessions. And the last session is actually next Saturday where we'll finish things up. And then we're going to celebrate the graduation of our class, as well as the classes of 21 and 20, because they didn't get a graduation party because of COVID. So we're going to have a big celebration on Saturday, May 14th in Barrie. Oh wow, Barrie. I love Barrie. We're going to do the event at the Old Labor Hall, which is a wonderful historic building and a great exhibit on the Barrie Union formations over the century. So how do you grade it? We don't grade. It's not like that. You don't graduate with a transcript or anything. You do get a diploma. But it's more the experience. And the women who sign up to take our class are not all going to run for office. They are also women who are exploring. Like, I think I want to do public service, but I'm not sure what that means. And they want to learn how much effort it takes to run for office as part of that education for themselves. Many women take the training because they want to be campaign managers or campaign comms directors. And then there's the women who plan to be candidates. And some of them come in and they say, I'm running this year. And others will say, I have a goal of five years from now. I'm going to run for this office. So it's a wide spectrum and everybody learns the same thing together. But we don't have like a grading system or anything like that. That's not the point. No, that's not the point. So I just wanted to know. So once they do the 70 hours, they should be ready. They're ready to run. Absolutely. Our class this year has, it's possible that we will have up to eight women on August primary this year, which is incredibly exciting. And four of the women in our class are now on their select boards, which those elections take place in March. So that's already happened for them. And it's really exciting to see the different offices that these folks are choosing to run for. So Mike, if somebody was interested in running for school board, is your program something that they might want to be a part of? Absolutely. School board and select board races are smaller because the districts are small, but the skills are the same. And you might not have to raise a ton of money. Maybe even $500 is more than enough. But understanding the importance of going door to door, meeting your neighbors where they are, getting your message honed and saying, getting your point across quickly and accurately and concisely so that voters know what to think about you and they can start forming their opinions as to who's going to vote, who they're going to vote for. Those skills are super important no matter what race you're running for. If I could just say one more thing about that. We'll keep talking about it. The importance of this training also is not just if you're running for office or want to be in politics. If you're somebody who runs for or who is running a nonprofit, or you are somebody who in your community wants to make a change, knowing how to convince the public how to vote for something is a really important skill. Maybe you want to institute a program in your community and your select board is wanting to know what the public thinks and you need to explain to them why it's important and you have to talk to them over a period of time and perhaps raise money. These skills are super important outside of politics as well. Those skills are so important. When you're talking about what are some of the main strengths you need to run? Is it the marketing? Like you said, getting a point out there. How do you reach these people? What's some of your trainings on reaching these individuals? The marketing aspect of reaching them? Your platform? Yeah. How important are the platforms? Well, I'll tell you, it's an important question you're asking. I'm going to get an answer that I don't think you're expecting. We focus from the very start on your personal values. Why are you running? Why is it really important to you that you get into this office and what change are you hoping to make? You need to be really clear on that because as you go through the campaign process, things are going to come out of left field. You're going to be doubting yourself sometimes. You're going to be criticized. You're going to be questioned. You need to know why am I doing this? That's the most important thing. That authenticity comes through when you are working on your messaging, when you're trying to convince a voter to vote for you, or when a voter comes to you and says, I'm not buying anything you're selling right now. You can say, okay, I accept that, but that's what's my core belief. That's the most important part. Then when you talk about messaging, you want to talk about how to say that in the shortest amount of words possible while getting your point across. How to have presence on camera, how to work with the media, how to write a press release, all those kinds of things are super important. Knowing your core mission, your core values deeply and accurately helps you share that message that much more clearly. What do you say in a press release? What do you say when you're running for some office? Press releases are actually kind of formulaic. You want to say who, what, where, when, and why. Jane Smith is running for the office of state legislature for District X, and she's announcing her candidacy today. These are the things she hopes to accomplish, and then some information about the district, and then you're done. Press releases are more for getting information out for a specific purpose, whereas talking to interviewers, writing letters to the editor or something on front porch forum, those are places where you can be a little bit more expansive and talk about your vision or your values. Press releases are really handy tools to get the media to pay attention to what you're trying to do in actual events or announcements. So how many people graduate? Is it a graduation? Okay, so how many people graduate? Well, we're graduating 24 on April 14th. Excuse me, May 14th. And total we will have at the end of May 176 alumni. Wow. We're really proud of that. That's so awesome. Does that number include the weekend workshops as well? Yes, the boot camp people, absolutely. It includes everyone who's gone through a boot camp training or our signature training. It also includes people who have taken training at the national level. So Emerge is actually a national organization with affiliates in 27 states, and they also offer training. And so we, for example, last summer ran a national boot camp that had 38 women in it from across the country, and some of them were from Vermont, and so those count towards our alumni as well. Awesome. You want something else? I noticed on your website that it is a national company or a project, but you have Emerge for Women and you have Emerge for Men. Is there possibly in the future Emerge for LGBTQ people or just non-binary representation that we could see coming forward? That's an awesome question, Jenna. Thank you for asking that. Men for Emerge for Mon is actually a group of supporters. So they are not part of our training system, but we look to them for their support and to support our candidates and to help us with training other people to how to work with women and to how to improve representation of women. Emerge as a national organization is having discussions right now about how to incorporate non-binary individuals into our training because we are very focused on electing more people from the new American majority, which is LGBTQ people, single women, childless women, women of color, LGBTQ people. We want to make sure that that majority, which is going to be between the next 20 and 30 years, those are the folks who are going to be in the majority of the United States. They need to be represented. So we are training them now so that they can be in office as soon as they possibly can and improve representation for that. So non-binary inclusion is something that is very high on our minds right now and we are working on how to do that. Yes. I'm really proud to be affiliated with an organization that's working on that. No doubt about it. So I don't know how many people of African-Americans have been through the training? Not as many as we'd like. And I became director almost a year ago and one of my goals was to increase the diversity of our leadership and of our alumni. And so we expanded our cabinet in the past year to include, we now have four women of color on our cabinet and then we've actively recruited women of color to take the training. So this year we have five women of color in the training. So that's about 16%, I believe. No, I'm wrong, 20% of the class, which is the highest percentage we've had of people of color in the class. And my goal is to just keep increasing that. Yeah, that's a decent number with 24 women graduating this year. Right. And so that's the kind of ratio at least I would like to see going forward for sure. No, but my being one of the widest state in America it's kind of hard to get people who might look like me or Jenna to be a part of your program. And so are you actually out there recruiting, trying to find them or looking for them? And you know, these type of people and to do that you would have to, they would want to run for some office too though, right? Well, as I said, a lot of the women who take the training don't necessarily have an office in mind to get started. But yes, we are actively recruiting women of color and folks to take the training all the time. So we have four cabinet members now who are women of color and so they are working with me to expand my network so that I can reach out to those people and offer the training to them and they are connecting me to people as well as the women who are in the class now. You know, they have friends. So the more that we train, the more the word gets out. But I'm also, I've reached out to various organizations. I've spoken to the folks who are organizing the Bright Leadership Institute to say, you know, please send your class members to us and we can send our class members to you. I've talked to Rights and Democracy Vermont. Mia Schultz, who is the Catalyst Leadership Program Director is on our cabinet. And so Mia has taught in our classes and I've taken classes through them. I'm really hoping that we can expand that partnership and raise the awareness of Emerge to communities of color so that they know that this is an option for them. No doubt about it. Yeah. And so, Ray, you got... Gerifano. Gerifano, you know, awesome person. Yes. You know, and she talked about going to your training or maybe still going through it. Yeah, she is in our current class and she has the unusual position of she was planning to run for school board but then the state representative from her district stepped down and Ray was appointed to take her place by the governor. So now she's going to run for re-election or it'll be her first election. Yeah. But she's already in the seat, so that's kind of cool. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, we're really proud of her. She came in, we met, we met, she came to my, one of my places in Margarine, we met and talked about ways we can work together. She also just got inducted Wednesday to the SS Rotarian. I'm an SS Rotarian and it was nice that, and I was like, Ray, sit on the same committee with me, you know, like I'm on the Equity, Indiversity and Inclusion Committee and she said to me, no doubt about it. And she's doing this other program called View and so that she knew. Yeah, you know, the really amazing thing about a lot of the women who go through Emerge is they're involved in everything. Like you, they're on multiple boards and they're in multiple community settings making a difference and running for office is a piece of that. A lot of people will run for office, they'll serve a couple of terms and then they'll go on and do other things and that's really important. Some folks stay in the legislature for a long time, but others, you know, they have a broad expanse of experience and they try to bring their skills to those audiences in a variety of different ways and being elected is just one of those ways you can make a difference. So Jenna is a sophomore at St. Michael's College and I guess that'll put you over 18 and so what's the age limit? 18 is definitely the minimum and I would love to talk to you about taking the training. In fact, we have an intern at Emerge Vermont who is also a St. Michael's student. She's a freshman and it's a great training for young people who are exploring. Our current class has two high school seniors in it and I think it's really valuable because both of those women they've got their whole future in front of them, they're not sure what they're going to want to do and so having this training means that if they decide to run for office in the future, they'll have the tools right there and the other thing about Emerge that is really, it separates Emerge from other organizations that train people is we have a network, it's our sisterhood and so when you're a graduate of Emerge, you are an Emerge sister forever and these women support each other on the campaign trail in the legislature on the select board. We support each other in friendly ways as well and so it's a group of people who are extremely dedicated to each other and also to making sure that representation of women continues to improve in Vermont and that's the overall goal, that's the whole point of this is to have better representation of women in government. No doubt about it. And so, I don't, you know, it seemed like this is, this state, it seemed more democratic and Republican or it gets democratic and progressive probably than more than Republican. So, so what's the, how's that work when, I guess it doesn't matter what tool you're affiliated with but are there Republicans within your organization? You might be one. Emerge Vermont trains Democratic women. Okay. That is the only requirement that we have. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. And so, so was she's good. Now, how many women, it seemed like a, it seemed like, I don't know, I don't have the answers but it seemed like there's a lot of women that sits in the house and legislative and more than men. Yeah. Vermont is among the top 10 of state legislatures that have women in office. We used to be number one but other states have caught up with us and we're somewhere between seven and nine right now at 42%, which is great. It's not 50%. It's not reflective of the actual demographics of our state. So, we want to see 50% or better in the state house and we're really fortunate because we have, in the state house, the leaders, the chairs of the committees are mostly women which is amazing and then we have a a woman, Senate pro tem, we have a woman, we have a woman lieutenant governor, we have a woman state treasurer and that's outstanding and in fact, the three legislative leaders, the speaker, the pro tem and the lieutenant governor, they're all Emerge women. They all graduate from Emerge. It's like beginning in Harvard. We're incredibly proud of that and there's about, there's 24 women in the state house who are Emerge grads and then there's one woman who is a secretary, Secretary Julie Moore of agency national resources, is an Emerge grad. The three of the four women who are running for Congress right now for the house are, so Senator Keisha Rom-Hinsdale is a co-founder of Emerge Vermont. Senator Ballant is a graduate and Lieutenant Governor Gray is a graduate. In addition, there is an Emerge grad, Dr. Nikki Tron, who is running against Congressman Welch for the Senate seat. She is also an Emerge grad. Wow. So we're everywhere. So important. So why do you think, I mean everybody, I just use Harvard, but I should use my school Northwestern, but I use Harvard. Why do you think people want to go, want to come to Emerge Vermont? Why do you think they want to need those 70 hours to say, well, and then so they can put on, I mean, I know they put on that resume and they put, I heard from Ray, I heard from Daisy, another one of your students, they were talking about Emerge Vermont. They just came out and said it, you know what I'm saying. And so why do you think, did they say? Because it works. Women get elected. So we, in either the 2020 or the 2018 cycle, we had an 83% win rate. That's enormous. So that means 83% of the Emerge women who ran for office won. A lot of them are still in the state house and the training is super effective. So it's, there's no secret sauce. It's just the hard work of understanding how to do field work, how to fundraise, how to get your message out clearly. It's effective training and we do it in a way that brings women together and the network is the other piece of it. People tell you about Emerge without you even asking, because it's really special and people really enjoy having that camaraderie, that sisterhood and knowing that they can call on each other to support themselves when they need it that even extends to fundraising. Like I know that if I ever decide to run for office I can call my Emerge sisters and they'll help me out with that and I will do the same for them. I think that's the whole package. It's the effective training and the sisterhood that really make it a compelling thing for folks to do if they want to run for office. And plus to them, I think you just can't take this away is what you said about them having that character, the characteristics why do I want to run for this and why? And I think that's important to be able to present that well, right? About why? Well, and I think also we have an innate understanding that women do things kind of differently. When women have passed legislation, there's been studies done at the congressional level that legislation introduced by women has a higher success rate and it has a higher number of co-sponsors signing on. And so that shows success because women are more collaborative in the way they do their work. They build alliances. They work together to pass legislation. And on top of that women tend to focus on the more traditional women topics like child care, mental health services, families, food, health care. Those are the topics that are really important to women because they are generally more associated with the family and you know the needs of women come more to the center when women are at the table. So you will see legislation about domestic abuse or sexual harassment improved into the criminal justice system because we are looking to solve problems and we know how to do that in a collaborative way. And it's a new way to do business if you're formerly a legislature that has been predominantly men. They just do things a little differently. Priorities might be a little different. I think that Vermont has benefited tremendously from the presence of all the women that are in the state house and in particular with the leadership that there is now. We have an outstanding treasurer. We have an outstanding Lieutenant Governor. Our state legislative leadership is really tops. They've managed to get Prop 5 and Prop 2 on the ballot. They succeeded in getting a pension plan going through although we'll see if our governor will not veto that. But there's been a huge amount of progress made by these women and they're a great thing to do effectively. So you have Becca, you've got Molly and you've got Keisha. And they all run it for Congresswoman for the house. So how do you support candidates? I'm sure you do, right? Do you support them somehow? Well, not necessarily because the congressional race is a great example. There are three extremely talented Emerge Women running. We do not endorse candidates. We do not endorse endorsements of any kind. We do not contribute to candidates. We do not do any campaigning for them on their behalf. What we do do is after primaries when the individual Democratic candidate if it's an Emerge candidate will say go. Like we'll support them in that way. We support them with things like social media. But nothing significant in the terms of campaign support or organization. Sure. Yeah. I get it. But it kind of seemed like that you could though. You could if you wanted to. I don't know if it's part of your bylaws. Because I think we'll have supported one of the candidates. So people are completely at freedom to contribute to whoever they wish. Being a congressman, I don't think so. If I was running for congress, everyone would support me. Well, congressman Welch has been very generous to Emerge Vermont. He has been a sponsor of some of our events in the past for many years. Contributing to Emerge Vermont is contributing to the education of any woman who is a Democrat who wants to get that training. It's not contributing to any of our individual graduates as candidates. Yeah. I'm a new service provider. I work with the coalitions around the state of Vermont. So one year we was going to Washington to visit our senators and congressmen. And we did. And so we go to Welch's office. It's a little smaller than the rest of the senators office. So it's hard to find the seat. So he's like, Bruce, Bruce, come sit over here. It's sitting at his desk. And so I sit at the congressman's desk. And then one year I was at the Kitsafe Collaborative Awards. We got four of them. He was speaking. And he's like, and there goes Bruce Wilson who took over my office. I'm like, oh no. Peter, you didn't say that. So it's funny. He's a humorous guy. He's great. He's cool. I like him anyways. I like him anyways for that event. I think all the candidates are really, you know, it's unique, are unique. And based on who they are and what they do, it's like they're definitely different. They believe a lot about the same, some of the platforms are the same. But you have to be like a housing person. I mean, good lord, you got to be tough on, you know, want that to happen. And so it's going to be very interesting. I know, you know, I think my friend, you know, she's, she's, um, um, very important to, uh, as a lieutenant governor. And, um, the rest of them is doing the positions that they are in. And hopefully that's some female might step into their spot whoever wins. Hopefully, yeah. Yeah. The lieutenant governor's race has quite a few candidates in it. Oh, I know. I know, um, he's going to run for it. He's like, ah, that's all right. I'm glad he is, you know what I mean, because no, he stayed, I think he was lieutenant governor for some, well, no, a couple of terms. Yes. You know, he did well. And I like some of his philosophy. A lot of things he, um, wanted to do and, uh, and did, you know what I mean. Well, uh, former representative Kitty Toll and current representative Charlie Kimball and then, um, Patricia Preston, who's the director of the World Council on World Affairs. So they're all highly qualified people. So it'll be a very interesting primary. Let me ask you a question. What is a lieutenant governor's job? Because it's like vice president, you know, of like the United States because you're like, are you going to do lieutenant governor both preside over the Senate? Right. So, um, lieutenant governor Gray starts the day at the Senate each day that she's there. Um, she's the tie breaking vote if there's a tie. And then other than that, the lieutenant governor's office is, um, I don't want to say largely ceremonial, ceremonial, but it's, it's an opportunity to get out and, and either, you know, work in partnership with the governor and help advance the initiatives of the administration. So, what do you think that, um, except, um, Dean, that there's been a Republican, um, governor's? Why do you think how that happened? The Monters are funny. How did that happen? Right? We split the ticket all the time. Um, I think Vermonters love their incumbents, first of all. And so, if you get in, you're in. Vermonters generally have definite blue pockets in Vermont, like Burlington, Brattleboro, a little bit of Washington County, but there's a lot of rural voters as well and they tend to vote more conservatively. And so, they have been voting for Republican governors for many, many years. Um, but as you know, they've also voted for Democratic governors. Yeah. Um, and right now the legislature is Democratic, that could change. Dean did some good, how many times he do? Is it four years? What is it for? We have two year terms for governor. That's right. And most of them tend to serve, you know, six to eight years. Yeah. Like Dean did. And we'll find out soon whether governor Scott's planning to run for reelection, but I think it will be his fifth term if he does that. I don't know what else he would do unless he, you know, wasn't governor. I think he'd retire and be very happy. Like, go back to race car driving. So COVID. So now on CDC, I said that we can take our mask off. Is there some dispute around that? Right. And what do you think? Well, I'm certainly not an expert on any of that, but for me personally, you know, it's a human being that says a person. I think it's, I think it's unfortunately very confusing right now. And I think that the new variant is just running rampant through our school system. And I think there's been a lack of management on the school system side to provide consistent guidance to prevent illness. But it's very difficult with people who are really anxious to get on with, without having to change their lives anymore because of COVID. And I think it's very difficult to be in the position of the Department of Health and the CDC after all this time trying to control the population with has so many vast opinions on it. And COVID is not impacting everybody but everybody's not experiencing the same impact. So some people know folks that have had COVID and it's been mild and others know people who have been very, very sick. But I don't, I don't envy the CDC at all. It's a very difficult job with their data. It is a very difficult job. And then it's like, you know, I'm like, God, you know, they was talking about another booster shot or something or fourth. Yeah, fourth booster. I know. And I'm thinking, there you go, man. Next, you know, six months later, there's another next, but have you had your 155th booster shot? We'll probably get to a point where every year we get a COVID shot just like we get a flu shot. You know? Definitely. And I'm just going to say a lot of people didn't take no shots. And because they, I don't know what, they all had different reasons and theories. You know, but I know you couldn't even go when I was a kid. You could even go to school without taking no shots. They couldn't bring a class to the auditorium. All those nurses and doctors were there to get you those unmeasel shots. And you know, and everybody did it. You know, it was like three or four different shots, you know, at different times that we all had to take them. And some immunity shots. And nobody complained. They just did it. Yeah, they're in different times now. Yeah, I know. It's very true. Yeah, I know. So anyway, so that was part of it. So then I want to talk about a little bit about Ukraine. And let's jump in anytime. Okay. This, you know, because I think the plight of the world, right? So, you know, you know, it's definitely political, but it's, you know, the whole thing is about politics and economics. I think it's more economics. I think that Russia is very concerned about the natural resources in Ukraine and they want access to them. And I think they are doing what they can to maintain their power over that region for that particular reason. Yeah. What do you think, Jenna? What do you think about Ukraine? What do you think about, you know, why, you know, what's going on there and why it's happening and still continuing to seem like the point that's been made on, I guess, I don't know. Obviously not. That's a very difficult question as a college student to consider, but I personally, as a sociology major, I look at it and I actually was just learning about this the other day from my wonderful professor, but she was telling us about how colonization can really have an effect even now, even if it was centuries ago and how Russia may want this power over Ukraine, even though they're not entitled to it, they still feel like they are and so they're going to keep making these people feel like they owe it to Russia to give them these resources and I think that it's a really toxic habit that we've created in the world of making some people feel inferior or less than just because of selfishness or greed or arrogance and I think that it's something that we would really have to consciously work as a community, as a global community to get over and I don't think people are ready to do that unfortunately. I don't think many people are making the mature choice to look at it impartially and from an unbiased viewpoint and I think it's really unfortunate that we've gotten to this point. I think you're right, I think a power dynamic is a big piece of this. Yeah, no doubt about it. It's just so sad, you know what I mean? And this is all the work I do is about humanitarian. It's all about working with people in communities and it's just to have to go through this. All these poor little kids and families and infrastructure and historical buildings and religious buildings and foundations and it's like... Culture and history. Culture and history, yeah. It's like, it's crazy. It's so bad. And the trauma they've created. Trauma, yes. Yeah, Elaine. Absolutely. Well, you got any last any parting words, Elaine? Well, I'm really grateful to you for having me on, Bruce. This has been really nice and I'm excited to know that your viewers will hear about Emerge Vermont and I hope that lots of folks are interested in learning about how they can train to run for office. You can visit our website EmergeVT.org and as I said, our application process will open in August and I'm looking forward to meeting a whole new cohort of amazing Vermont women who want to change the world. Well, I want to thank Elaine Haney, the executive director of Emerge Vermont for coming on our show as I guess. Thank you. I learned a lot, I'm happy I did. That's one thing I like about our shows, we learn a lot from people. In general, I might have to be here like a boy or something and get it to run us for something. Well, I'd be happy to talk with you offline about that. We'll see. Senator, come on, you got that. Go ahead, give the senator a look. You can see it, you can be it. Give the senator a look. Go ahead. All right, thank you very much and thank you all just for tuning in and I'll see you soon.