'We’re the biggest read magazine — literally — in the world,' Coles said. Cosmo editor makes political push

To the growing list of publications trying to get in on the Washington action, add one more: Cosmopolitan magazine.

Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Joanna Coles, the magazine’s leader, said Tuesday that she’s already on her fourth trip to Washington this year.


“I really want Cosmo as a magazine to be more involved in political issues,” Coles said at a dinner in her honor at Georgetown’s Cafe Milano. “We’re the biggest read magazine — literally — in the world and I think it’s very important that we stay on top of political issues that impact young women: Health care, gun violence, the wage gap, how do we close it. These are all issues that I’m personally passionate about.”

Coles already has a big fan in the White House; she met with White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett earlier in the day and learned from Jarrett’s assistant that “she gets other magazines sent to her for free, but she always buys Cosmo, which I thought was really nice.”

Coles was joined by full table of women leaders — Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), MSNBC’s Karen Finney, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), POLITICO’s Kim Kingsley, Hearst Magazines’ Holly Whidden, Voto Latino’s Maria Teresa Kumar, Susanna Quinn, Emily’s List Stephanie Schriock and Amy Dacey, Washington Life’s Nancy Bagley and lobbyist Heather Podesta (the event was sponsored by consultants Shari Yost Gold and Kimball Stroud, Cafe Milano’s Franco Nuschese and Hollywood on the Potomac’s Janet Donovan).

It was, by all measures, a classic Cafe Milano night; as the group discussed how to get more women to run for office, the conversation was sprinkled with interruptions from high-profile diners; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Colin Powell all popped in to say hello (and Sen. Lindsey Graham happened to be in the room, as well).

For her part, Klobuchar’s involvement with Cosmopolitan goes way back; after mingling with the U.S. Senator from Minnesota, Coles revealed to the crowd that “I just discovered that the senator to my right actually wrote a piece for Cosmo while she was in college — and it was rejected!”

“Like every other 20-year-old aspiring writer,” Klobuchar said. “But I got another job instead.”

“I’m going to right a wrong by 30 years by commissioning the senator to do a piece for us,” Coles said.

Klobuchar also talked about what it’s like being a woman in the U.S. Senate.

“This family balance thing is so hard in the Senate because we’re a new generation of women coming in,” Klobuchar said. “There are so few with kids.”

Klobuchar recounted one incident that best demonstrated how she juggles work with family.

“My daughter was going to the swimming party for the 7th grade class and she had to get a swimming suit and I was supposed to take her to Target, a Minnesota company. And we had votes on national security stuff … And so we had these votes and I had to vote, I couldn’t go. So my husband had to go to Target and I got this call from her as I’m going into this major vote and her name pops up and I answer and she’s crying. She goes, ‘Dad doesn’t understand! We can’t wear a bikini to the 7th grade party but we can wear a tankini and he doesn’t know the difference, Mom! He doesn’t know the difference!’ And I screamed, ‘Put him on the phone!’”

But Klobuchar said she’s proud of the growing number of women in the Senate, which she says “resulted in the first ever in the history of the United States traffic jam in the women’s Senate bathroom.”

Speaking of records, Klobuchar also said that she’s proud of how she raised money for her first Senate run: “I called everyone I ever knew and set a record that still hasn’t been broken in the United States Senate; I raised $17,000 from ex-boyfriends. … As my husband says, that’s a not an expanding base!”

Many in the room declared, “Now that’s a Cosmo story!”