Through the DNC race and afterward, Smith treated the national political press like it was another constituency that needed to be courted. This sign-up form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. [20] She was a senior advisor on Corey Johnson's 2021 campaign for New York City Comptroller, and raised $3.5 million in funds for a PAC supporting Andrew Yang's 2021 mayoral campaign. Smith has been exploring the idea of renting a bus, and just as McCain did, inviting reporters aboard to travel and fire away at Buttigieg with any question they want, all day, day after day. But its not just about the 18-year-old girl. Chuck Kennedy/PFA. And as you saw on Fox News Sunday, as I went to bed last night, [his clip] has 8 million views. She was also communications director for Dan Seals' 2008 Illinois House race. At that point, reporters she had developed relationships with began to reach out, wondering what she was doing wasting her credibility on a little-known character who seemed like a step down the ladder of political prospects. In recent months you have made a name for yourself by working for this new crop of candidates out in the middle of the country: Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, Aftab Pureval and others. Wren: How is Harris doing as a communicator? And someone needs to be. There may be nobody more central to Mayor Petes media successbesides the candidate himself, and arguably his social-media-savvy husband, Chasten Buttigiegthan Smith, who serves as a communications adviser and all-around aide. Did I think I was going to walk into his office and tell him that I was dating Eliot Spitzer? Is it your relationship with reporters and cable bookers? And if I can help you with my experience, my profile, my contacts, to do that, then I will do it. ET Political strategist Lis Smith isn't a married woman, though she may one day decide to tie the knot with a lucky somebody. I think we saw that Kamalas attack on Biden was obviously was pretty pointed. After the fundraiser, Smith and Buttigieg climb into an SUV and head to 30 Rock. Lis Smith Wiki Bio: Age, Husband, Net Worth, Children, Education, Career, Family, LinkedIn. In a clip from her memoir shared by Fox News, Smith slammed de Blasio for leaving her out to dry after firing her over the affair. And the fact that hes everywhere, from cable TV to Ebony to your local NPR show to your favorite sports podcast, means that a guy with no name recognition is suddenly hard to avoid. [2][3] During her time at Dartmouth, she volunteered for John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign. But Joe Biden is president today, and Kamala Harris is his vice president. 20 2022, Published 11:56 a.m. My advice is just go out there more, communicate more. Politics has a bias toward the status quo, she says. Yeah, I guess Id fallen in love with slightly problematic guy It wasnt like I was dating Ted BundyEliot was the former governor and attorney general of New York State, Smith said, referring to the serial killer. Wren: What is your relationship with Pete like now? Offers may be subject to change without notice. Smith did not let anyone featured in the book read it ahead of time, not even former principals like Buttigieg or Cuomo, whom she levels in the book in the way her beloved Cincinnati Bengals new right tackle Lael Collins might decimate an opposing player. That maybe once he double-dipped his fry at Barnabys? There was only one path for us to break through. Yeah. Im horrified. Its an inherent conflict of interest. Smith tells Politico:. [Smiths voice breaks here.] The bad candidates are people who are insecure, who put their finger in the wind, who dont trust their instincts enough and dont have the backbone to do the right things. She is practically shaking with excess energy. She became obsessed with the idea of working for him, then became further obsessed when she actually met him, and developed the notion that once people got to meet him they would start to like him. In fact, other than Spitzer, Smith appears to have been flying solo for the last few years. It wasnt an ideal situation, but it taught me a lot, Smith says. As a thirty-something mayor of a medium-size city, Buttigieg faced a credibility threshold with the national press. Riley Keough has been married to Australian stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen since 2015. That fall, Spitzer and Smith started dating, which led to the New York City tabloids staking out her apartment to watch the pair coming and going. The White House Correspondents Dinner is shrinking back to the boring awards ceremony journalists claimed to prefer. Between 1987 and 2013, Spitzer had been married to Silda Wall Spitzer. The savvy strategist then had to figure out how to break the news to de Blasio and his camp, as their soon-to-be City Hall press secretary was now at the center of her own juicy tabloid scandal. The actress who is the daughter of the late Lisa Marie Presley and musician Danny Keough met. The way Smith tells it, she thought she was done with presidential politics after OMalleys campaign fizzled in 2016. I want Republicans to read this book. Whitney Whitis. You write: Here we go said Larry Grisolano, Petes media consultant, stating the obvious. Lis Smith on Pete Buttigieg's campaign bus during a. Ahead of the release of her highly anticipated political memoir (which Politico Magazine excerpted last week), that includes figuring out how to get her computer to record our phone interview ammo to use in the event that its needed to set the record straight. People read about my personal life in Page Six, and they think Im going to be sort of an out-there type of person that is attention seeking and all of that. She advised a couple of governors still left in office, and started taking on more nonprofit clients. If there is one thing that makes Smith unique, its not her knowledge of great apes or her particular skill eviscerating her opponents on Twitter; Its that her skin was toughened by a stretch of time in the rawest, roughest media environment of all, the NYC tabloid scrum. And that was our media strategy. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. I am a liberal Democrat, but I was so into the McCain thing. I tell her that I have been calling around to former coworkers and associates, trying to get a sense of how she operates. But more broadly, they are diagnosing the ills of the party that paid their housing for years. Gripping reads, smart analysis and a bit of high-minded fun. He's on his way into a black car to do Maddow. You deploy the F-bomb like Picasso used drypoint. Democratic Political strategist and former Pete Buttigieg 2020 campaign advisor Lis Smith trashed former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during a Monday interview with MSNBC host Nicolle. Andrew Cuomo, had turned into a Nicorette-chomping ahole who ruined the lives of his staffers after letting national fame get to his head during the coronavirus pandemic. Click here. Its that everyday when I go into work to try and get these people elected its because it will impact lives. Smith double majored in government and anthropology at Dartmouth College, graduating in 2005. How hard-chargingNew Yorkoperative Lis Smith helpedturn an obscure Indianamayorinto a national name. ELIOT AND DeBABE blared the cover of the New York Post, which ran several photos of the pair on its inside pages and in a column from the acid-tongued Andrea Peyser which called Smith not just any ordinary bimbo and called her an ambitious, youngish cookie who presumably does not charge Eliot for any services rendered., Eliot Spitzer and Lis Smith at a Philadelphia 76ers vs. New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden in 2014. 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. Political strategist Lis Smith reveals in her new book how The Post exposed that she was dating prostitution-loving former Gov. 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. Smith is a fierce New York City-based Democratic operative who helped engineer the plan to get Buttigieg in front of not just national political reporters, but anybody with a camera or microphone. How consequential was that looking back? Smith: I think Ive got good relationships with people in the media. [39] Time and Politico included her on their lists of the best political Twitter feeds. Wren: You mentioned that some people might view you as radioactive. Wren: One of the theses of Petes campaign was that mayors are on the front lines of democracy. I fucking love John McCain. By ERIN BANCO, GARRETT M. GRAFF, LARA SELIGMAN, NAHAL TOOSI and ALEXANDER WARD. This story has been shared 102,835 times. This is what day two looks like. Smith has spent much of her career as a political strategist working for prominent men such as Pete Buttigieg, Barack Obama, and the now disgraced Andrew Cuomo. Why would a Pete Buttigieg hire me? James Devaney/Getty Images. Wren: Youre often credited with vaulting Pete from the mayor of Indianas fourth-largest city to a member of Bidens cabinet. Riley was joined by her husband Ben Smith-Petersen, who gave a touching speech at Lisa Marie's funeral, in which he revealed that they recently welcomed a daughter into the world. I think Ive heard Pete use the F-word once or twice, for example, and his personal life doesnt play out in the pages of the New York tabloids. Did I think hed sit on the floor with me and sing Kumbaya and tell me it would be all okay? The Democratic bench isnt going to be found on Meet the Press every Sunday, and its not going to be found on cable news. ), Smith quipped. Dont miss it! The two of us talked this week about Buttigiegs political future, whether Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow could jump into politics, and the ingredients of a good political candidate. The Post ran the exclusive photos of Spitzer ducking in and out of the Soho walk-up. What I realized from my time working in politics is how much mystery there still is around this industry. She texts the buzziest bits to her sprawling network of journalistic contacts, who tweet them out. When I was starting in politics, we didnt have women. The Simpsons actress Yeardley Smith is newly married and she and her husband have quite the . Letting Claire be Claire. I want political people to read this book, because I think its fun. I see that being taken so far out of context. To avoid stakeouts during the media frenzy that followed, Smith said she temporarily stayed with a friend from her college days at Dartmouthwho resided on the Upper West Side. It felt like we connectedwe went over our allotted time, and I had another beer, and by the end I had shifted from very skeptical to only moderately skeptical, just maybe seeing a lane for his candidacy. It was total bullst. I really did feel he treated me as an equal. And then what?, she thought to herself. She has advised New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and Montana Governor Steve Bullock, people who on paper at least are far more likely top-tier presidential contenders, and she served as a top aide for a number of Senate and gubernatorial races. "[29] Lloyd Green, writing for The Guardian, called it "breezy and informative. A photo and audio tour of the hosts driving the conversation. Theyre in the agencies. I, in those races, became extremely battle-tested. And you had Democrats out there saying, when they go low, we kick them in the face, and engaging in all this over-the-top rhetoric. | Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ABC via Getty Images. Lis Smith, Buttigieg's top communications adviser . The obvious thing to do would have been to take on high-paying, quieter corporate gigs, or to reenter politics with someone truly high profile. And maybe I shouldve gone to law school. I thought you had cancer or something. He motioned to the bartender again`Well take two shots of Jameson on top of that roundbefore turning back to me and clearing his throat. She dated former Missouri State Sen. Jeff Smith from 2005 to 2009, before he was locked up in a federal pen for obstruction after a probe of the state's 2004 election. [11][12] In 2018, Smith became spokeswoman for Andrew Cuomo's successful re-election campaign, who had endorsed the political entity. She then switched to de Blasios general election campaign for mayor. I think thats probably the biggest misconception about me. It was in 2013, the time when Smith was working for the de Blasio campaign, that she began dating Eliot Spitzer. This includes with her own boss. Alums [of the campaign] are on the Hill. It is my passion. Lis knew that she had to build wide to build up, said Stephanie Cutter, who also worked on Obamas 2012 effort. It was as horrible as Id anticipated and seeing the photos of Eliot and me taken in what wed thought were private moments was even more disturbing, knowing they were on display to anyone who cared to look, she writes in the 304-page tome. My observation, said Axelrod, who worked with Smith on Obamas 2012 reelection campaign, is that she is the quiet hero of his emergence.. Maybe they wont focus on the former reigning champion [Spitzer], for once. And its something that forever Ill be thankful to him for. Running for politics theres got to be a little element of narcissism or whatever you want to call it in you. 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. The New York tabs may have sharpened her game, but people who've known her for years say Smith came ready for the fight. Smiths mother is a descendent of a signer of the Mayflower Compact, and a cousin of lead Watergate investigator Sam Ervin. Buttigieg reignited Smiths love for politics, she says, after a really difficult 2015 and 2016 due to her breakup with former New York Gov. I want political people to read this book, because I think thats probably the misconception. For politics theres got to be courted of narcissism or whatever you want to call it in.. The exclusive photos of Spitzer ducking in and out of the Mayflower Compact, and started on! Twitter feeds Youre often credited with vaulting Pete from the mayor of a signer of the driving! 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