Wren: You mentioned that some people might view you as radioactive. But there may be no political couple odder than that of Buttigieg and Smith. There is this thing that I have to be very honest with, because maybe I had been seen as a little radioactive because I had unwillingly had my private life spread all over the tabloids, more established candidates might not have hired me. And if I can help you with my experience, my profile, my contacts, to do that, then I will do it. The New York Post is looking into you and Eliot, Smith wrote, adding, Well, fk. The American, democratic campaign communication specialist Lis Smith is a well-known face in American politics. Not to be cheesy, but it is one of my proudest accomplishments. He's on his way into a black car to do Maddow. Otherwise, I would kill myself. Which is to say that Buttigieg may know seven languages and carry around Ulysses and sit in with the South Bend Orchestra on piano, but as far as his top aide is concerned, it is only because he has an extra year on her. That means that shes held to a different standard than sometimes other candidates. In a tweet shared on July 20, 2022, Jeff praised Smith for the publication of her insightful book., Talked @Morning_Joe about why I wrote Any Given Tuesday: "More than ever we need people to believe in the political processPolitics is more important than ever. A New York Post photographer had been surreptitiously posted outside my SoHo walkup apartment. While working for the Obama campaign she met David Axelrod, whom Smith considers a mentor. Neither Eliot nor I was gonna win a gold medal in the not reckless competition at the Olympics. In a chapter entitled The Eye of the Storm, she recalled how her parents who reside in Westchester were shockedwhen photographers and scribes were camped outside their home when Spitzer joined them for Christmas dinner. [24], Smith authored the 2022 book Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story. Smith: Yes. Riley Keough's husband, Ben Smith-Petersen, revealed the couple welcomed a baby girl while he gave a speech on behalf of his wife during a memorial service for Lisa Marie Presley on Sunday By. From the second I met Pete, I knew that there was something special about him. Because even power needs a day off. Eliot Spitzer]. Lis Smith (born October 15, 1982) is an American political strategist affiliated with the Democratic Party. Weve seen a lot of cataclysmic things happen. Its really hard to do a hit piece on a guy who you are going to see the next morning over coffee and donuts, says Weaver. Schmuhl, his campaign manager, says a typical scene from the trail for the three of them is arriving 10 or 15 minutes early to the airport gate, and while he and Buttegiegwho hes known since 8th grade in Indianatake a moment to relax for a minute before boarding, Smith will head to the airport bar with her laptop and phone and begins texting and emailing reporters and clapping back to critics on social media. But until they released him from the NDA, we just didnt get his clients. I worked in politics nine years before I ever moved to New York. After news broke on the relationship, more photos were released, and Smith was eventually forced to come clean to fellow campaign members about the love match she had formed with Spitzer. Pete was completely different. A photo and audio tour of the hosts driving the conversation. That maybe once he double-dipped his fry at Barnabys? [Smiths voice breaks here.] When Smith signed on to help Mayor Pete run for DNC chair, it was a part-time gighelping a candidate nobody had ever heard of run for an insider position, the kind of job decided not by the public, but in backrooms by the most hardcore party loyalists. [33][34][35] She has written for publications such as The New York Times, Vanity Fair and The Washington Post. [5] In 2009, she became press secretary for Terry McAuliffe and Jon Corzine's gubernatorial races before moving on to becoming the communications director for Ted Strickland's 2010 Ohio governor's race. What is Lis Smiths secret sauce? And you dont know who is actually going to attack you. I had that early rush of love on the brainI wasnt thinking clearly. When I stood up and left the table, Buttigieg stayed, and I recognized a woman sitting at the bar. [44] Smith plays the violin.[44]. TV news executives are calling, she says, emailing, now complaining that Buttigieg isnt doing their shows often enough. Lis Smith, a Democratic communications operative, has written a memoir that pulls back the curtain on how campaigns are won and lost. Lets just blow it out. I romanticize it. Ourmost scandalous transgression was showing up three minutes late to the breakfastbuffet and sweet talking our way into cheese and jalapeo omelets.. Click here. The attack we had been dreading was coming. She was also communications director for Dan Seals' 2008 Illinois House race. Smith, standing behind Buttigieg as he campaigns at various events in New York this April. There is nothing too big for her. The guy didnt have time to say hello before Smith could hear screaming over the line. | She wants to know if Id seen Buttigieg answer a question about the Notre Dame fire from a French TV station, in French. Pete has no battle scars. He is in talks to do a Fox News town hall in the coming weeks, building off the surprise success of Bernie Sanders appearance on Fox, and in the past couple of weeks has also been on Ellen and The View, as well as Preet Bhararas podcast, The Intercepts podcast and The New Yorkers podcast. Lis Smith is recording this call. Smith: Dont make me praise Chris Meagher. Because 2015 and 2016 were really difficult times in my life. I would do that for free.). The first time people saw Pete, it was the same as the reaction I had when I first met him, which is where the hell has this guy been my entire life?. Running for politics theres got to be a little element of narcissism or whatever you want to call it in you. Buttigieg has gotten a number of lavish long-form features, so many that some have jokingly wondered whether Smith is getting paid by the profile. When I met him was right after Trump won the election, and Democrats are running around with their hair on fire for good reason. Weaver says that recreating that atmosphere in the days of Twitter, and in the days when the national political press corps has metastasized into a constantly hungry and multiheaded beast equipped with cell phones, is 10 times harder than when his team tried it in 1999. Market Realist is a registered trademark. I am humbled and flattered and appreciative of when people recognize the hard work I put in on our media strategy, and the fact that we employed a media strategy that was radically different from everyone else in the field. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. The great media disruption comes for the Des Moines Register. He was attempting a comeback by running for the modest job of New York City comptroller, and when the vote came in, he pulled in a respectable 48 percent, even though the entire citys political establishment was against him. Dont miss it! Theyre in the agencies. The spotlight turns to Kamala Harris, the only Black candidate on stage. Why would a Pete Buttigieg hire me? A few weeks ago, a couple of hundred people expressed interest in this event. Part of it with him is the persona. He weighed in after the shooting in Uvalde. Lis Smith: My favorite was one person asking me if I lost a bet or something. And it was the first time Id worked in politics that Id ever felt that way. Terry McAuliffe, and President Barack Obama, Lis Smith is finally flacking for Lis Smith. She figured that Buttigiegs sexual orientation and impossible-to-pronounce last name rendered him dead on arrival, but started researching the 35-year-old Indiana mayor and promptly took an eight-hour fall down a Google rabbit hole. On Sunday, Bill de Blasio put out a statement in a New York Post story in his own name defending himself against the portrait you paint of him in your book as obsessively paranoid. If you were working for him, and a book like yours came out authored by someone else, how would you have advised him to address the situation? But Joe Biden is president today, and Kamala Harris is his vice president. I dont live and breathe politics every day. I think thats always been part of Joe Bidens appeal. He doesnt yell and scream, take the most extreme positions on issues, or tweet incendiary things. There is only so much you can do to bare your soul over a beer, but hopefully people get to know you on some level and more than they would one gaggle at a time. The problem with a lot of people, not just candidates, but anyone in life who is caught up in a crisis is that they react. Lis Smith is a veteran of twenty political campaigns. Smith said she learned a hard lesson: Even a professional cant try to manage a personal crisis without help. And there was not a better antidote to Trump than Pete in terms of style, in terms of life experience, and in terms of his worldview. But its not just about the 18-year-old girl. Wren: I want a window into how you advise candidates amid a crisis. Honesty is really, really important to handling a crisis because you have to have all the facts at your disposal. Details of that relationship were first brought to light by various media outlets and then, in Smiths recently debuted memoir, Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story. Wren: You write pretty transparently in the book about times youve been fooled by a candidate. Buttigieg recently started getting savaged online when it surfaced that he had told an audience in 2015 that all lives matter, and as it happened, he was due to speak at Al Sharptons annual National Action Network convention. Wren: One of the theses of Petes campaign was that mayors are on the front lines of democracy. William C. Lopez After leaving the eatery at around 12:30 a.m., Smith gave Spitzer a flirtatious look over her shoulder before the . Mistakes Ive made in my professional life. Lis Smith was supposed to become de Blasio's press secretary until The Post revealed that she was dating former Gov. But I dont know whats inside him. 20172020 Pete Buttigieg presidential campaign, Pete Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign, Martin O'Malley 2016 presidential campaign, Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service, "On the Ground With Lis Smith, the Political Pro Who Invented 'Mayor Pete', "A Tabloid Bashing, and a Lost Job With the Mayor", "Virginia Politics Blog - McAuliffe Adds Press Secretary", "To Know Mayor Pete, Look at His Top Adviser's Underreported Past", "Mayor Pete Buttigieg Is Even Worse Than He Seems", "Knowing the Buttiverse: We're tracking 101 ex-staffers from Secretary Pete's 2020 campaign and where they are now", "The Women Running Presidential Campaigns Give Us a Behind-the-Scenes Look at Life on the Trail", "10 of the most powerful women who are running the 2020 presidential campaigns from behind the scenes", "Lis Smith | 2020 40 under 40 in Government and Politics", "GU Politics announces fall fellows to celebrate its fifth anniversary", "Andrew Cuomo's Smear Team: His Brother and Top Advisers, Transcripts Reveal", "The Moment Cuomo Adviser Lis Smith Says MSNBC Anchor Katy Tur Repeated Her 'Spin' On Air", "In crisis PR mode, Lis Smith told top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa to 'just have your fucking assistant text people' and 'this is insane' as sexual harassment scandal blew up", "The Michigan Democrat Who Could Solve Her Party's Identity Crisis", "Lis Smith dishes on love of political combat in new book", "Two New Memoirs Detail the Threats to American Democracy", "Confessions of a Political Swashbuckler", "Welcome to the new era of political memoir", "Any Given Tuesday: Lis Smith on Cuomo, Spitzer and a political life", "Opinion | Lis Smith's self-serving story about Andrew Cuomo", "Let's Hear From the Women Lis Smith Smeared", "Opinion | 'The G.O.P. 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