Mistakes Ive made in my private life. You get a sense of the news, what is going to get picked up, she said, reaching into her bag for her copy of the Post, which she said she was saving for Buttigieg. Why? I was making the bet that I could run out the clock on disclosing our relationship until I got hired officially. Gripping reads, smart analysis and a bit of high-minded fun. She is operating on two and a half hours of sleep, having just arrived back in New York on a charter jet from South Bend, Indiana, after Buttigieg announced he was running for president. Politics is really personal to me. So many flacks lose their mind over inconsequential things, and have no sense of, This is good press, this is mediocre press, and this is awful press. That is something you know once you have been through awful press.. Smith: Democrats love to bitch that we dont have a bench. He did. But he is also the kind of person journalists tend to like: bookish, somehow earnest with a sense of irony, and willing to talk the way journalists like people to talk, playing the pundit and getting into the political process and discussing his own ambitions. But you know, more importantly, through some trial and error, over this very long career, I learned the importance of letting candidates be candidates, right? Lis Smith (born October 15, 1982) is an American political strategist affiliated with the Democratic Party. A Democratic candidate in West Virginia is going to look very different from a Democratic candidate in New York, and we cant impose this one-size-fits-all thing and think that the Democratic Party is going to be a majority party. I want him on everything, she told me. Smith: Joey Burrow is an incredible leader. Terry McAuliffe, and President Barack Obama, Lis Smith is finally flacking for Lis Smith. Lis Smith on Pete Buttigieg's campaign bus during a. [16] Business Insider considered her to be one of the 10 most powerful women running the 2020 presidential campaigns. Eliot Spitzer while working for incoming Mayor Bill de Blasio.. [2][11], She was the deputy campaign manager for the Martin O'Malley 2016 presidential campaign. Although Smith and Spitzer attempted to keep the affair under wraps, a photographer for the New York Post spotted the pair at her SoHo walkup apartment, exchanging loving looks.. I think I am impressive because I am a violinist and I went to Dartmouth and I speak French and have traveled all over the world and, I dont know, I know a lot about great apes, she says. Lis Smith, Buttigieg's top communications adviser . So what I try to do is to meet candidates where they are, and to help work with them on what their strengths are and not to erase the things in them that are quirky or not, but see if we can use them as assets. You know what people are going to react to, and you know that the tabloids, just like the political press, oftentimes just wants a little scalp and then they will move on., How the Intercept Is Fueling the Democratic Civil WarBy Steven Perlberg. Its a role that clearly lends itself to his skill set. Wren: He rehabilitated you and taught you to love the political process again. Eliot Spitzer's girlfriend Lis Smith, 31, has not been asked to take up a position in New York mayor Bill de Blasio's new City Hall team in the wake of her affair with the disgraced former governor. Behind the scenes, Id get keep your head up emails from senior de Blasio aides, but when it came to the press, it seemed their attitude was more along the lines of off with her head. As voters look for someone who can beat Trump, the fact that the press corps appears to vouch for this curious character, a young liberal red-state mayor, means that voters can give him a second look too. He's on his way into a black car to do Maddow. She led Buttigieg on a series of one-on-one meetings over beer, coffee, lunch or cigars with what used to be known as the Gang of 500those reporters, producers and pundits who shape much of the nations political coverage. Spitzer and Smith stayed together for more than two years, with the tabloids following them pretty much the whole time. News has confirmed her daughter Riley Keough welcomed a daughter with husband Ben Smith-Petersen, who mentioned their child at the singer's. Shes a Black half-South-Indian woman. 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. A photo and audio tour of the hosts driving the conversation. He lives in New York. Im joking. Its just a personal part of my book. Usually, it was all good-natured. And I have a nice, quiet life where I dont live in Washington, D.C. Click here. We met at the Roxy Hotel in Tribeca. He had stayed behind in an area where there was active conflict while she travelled on by herself. Lis Smith on Pete Buttigieg's campaign bus during a four day tour of Iowa, September 23, 2019. The great media disruption comes for the Des Moines Register. He looked white as a ghost, didnt say anything, just nodding along. Former communications director, Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, De Blasio didnt trust NYPD security to keep secrets, ex-aide Lis Smith claims, Gross unshowered de Blasio wanted to get in bed with Spitzer but I beat him to it: ex-aide Lis Smith, How Americas gov became Americas ahole: Ex-Cuomo staffers new book, Chris Cuomo could be a dk to disgraced ex-govs staff, new book claims. Buttigiegs rise from unlikeliest of contenders to actual top-tier presidential candidate has been fueled in part, maybe in large part, by his astonishing success courting the press. Pete made us all show up to give our 100 percent at work made us all better at our jobs. Fantasy football we were competitive about that. She most recently worked as a senior advisor in communications to presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. [1], Smith was born to lawyers Thomas, cousin of Senator Sam Ervin, and Adrienne Smith and was raised in Bronxville, New York, along with her twin brother Angus, and older siblings Ashley and Toby. I think now more than ever, people need to understand how the media works. | Scott Olson/Getty Images, Lis has an insurgent mentality, said Axelrod, a top aide for both of President Obamas campaigns. Smith: Are we talking about the same Pete Buttigieg? No. [43], Smith says she experiences stage fright. He was an incredible leader at Louisiana State University someone that team could rally around, and such a maturity to him. Like we saw with Hillary Clinton, women are sometimes held to a different standard. We knew the McKinsey stuff would be it, but he was bound by an NDA. They are doing things that are more directly relevant to peoples lives. Through the DNC race and afterward, Smith treated the national political press like it was another constituency that needed to be courted. The Buttigiegs announced last month that they were engaged in the adoption process. 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. Regular voters and the media were primed for it.. Your Bengals fandom and their Super Bowl run is a part of the book. How much of his success was because of you, and how much was because of him? 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. [42] The relationship ended her role in de Blasio's mayoral campaign after tabloids published stories about it. The late Lisa Marie Presley is a grandmother. Before getting involved with Spitzer, Smith allegedly became romantic with Jeff Smith, who she reportedly met at Dartmouth while he was working as her professor. I tell her that I have been calling around to former coworkers and associates, trying to get a sense of how she operates. She had served as a senior aide on OMalleys 2016 bid and with the Maryland governor when he was head of the Democratic Governors Association. When I met him was right after Trump won the election, and Democrats are running around with their hair on fire for good reason. Its why in one day we do CBS Sunday Morning, The View, Teen Vogue and the New Yorker. Now that they have achieved liftoff, as it were, Smith is preparing for the next part of the campaign. It is my passion. Why would a Pete Buttigieg hire me? 90 minutes with one of America's top political consultants. Theres the article in the Atlantic where the writer met the mayor of South Bend, Indiana for a chicken tempura lunch in Manhattan. The story of American presidential politics is in part the story of the consiglieres who steer the candidate along the path: The person who pushes them forward, comforts them when the campaign flails, plots long-term strategy and tactical short-term advantage, bends the ear of the press corps and makes the public case for a candidate in ways the candidate cannot. Phil snorted: Fck. She is most well known for being the senior advisor for Pete Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign and the director of rapid response for Obama's 2012 campaign. The one thing you saw on our campaign in 2020 is that everywhere we went, he was introduced by young leaders, young mayors. Pete was completely different. But I understand that what I do isnt just a game. That is not the typical relationship of adviser to political principal, but typical is not a word people use about Smith. [19], In 2020, Smith was one of six political experts named as fellows by the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service. which Politico Magazine excerpted last week. After the fundraiser, Buttigieg is going to rush off to 30 Rock to do Maddow, then in the morning New Day on CNN, and then fly to Iowa, then do Morning Joe when hes back. Her father was a partner at the white-shoe law firm Sidley Austin. [31][32], Smith is also known for her commentary and analysis of United States politics. I really did feel he treated me as an equal. She puts the word fuck through every part of speech the word can be bent into: noun, pronoun, gerund, verb, term of endearment, sobriquet, epithet, honorific. And it was the first time Id worked in politics that Id ever felt that way. Maybe somewhere an 18-year-old girl like me can pick up my book and can learn something from it about how you work with candidates, how you work with the media, how you deal with crisis, and also learn from my mistakes. It might not get you the votes, but I am not the political director. Its that everyday when I go into work to try and get these people elected its because it will impact lives. I knew from the beginningthat our relationship would be a big tabloid story when it became public. Smith: Dont make me praise Chris Meagher. Hes going to sound so elitist. Or: Why does he have to answer every question with a proverb? Voters can smell when candidates are being authentic, and when candidates are not. 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. 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. Smith: I dont know, because I think one thing we saw was that he was pretty good about handling stuff. I see Donald Trump win the White House, which like everyone else, Im flabbergasted. [40], Smith dated Missouri politician Jeff Smith after meeting him at Dartmouth and handled some of his publicity during his campaign. I worked in politics nine years before I ever moved to New York. My end goalsbeing able to stay in New York with Eliot and serve as the New York City mayors press secretarywere in sight. The spotlight turns to Kamala Harris, the only Black candidate on stage. Overtime: David Duchovny, Matt Taibbi, Lis Smith | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO) Real Time with Bill Maher 2.54M subscribers Subscribe 11K Share 913K views 6 months ago Subscribe to the Real. After O'Malley's campaign, she advised several nonprofit organizations, and incumbent governors such as Montana governor Steve Bullock. February 5, 2020 younolly Biography 0. It was in 2013, the time when Smith was working for the de Blasio campaign, that she began dating Eliot Spitzer. Smith said she learned a hard lesson: Even a professional cant try to manage a personal crisis without help. Smith is 31; a Dartmouth graduate who apparently has a thing for bad boys. What is this new phase of your career about? Smith, who is a Bronx native, must be an intelligent woman, but going for the "bad boys" might . Some are even in the White House, like Deputy Press Secretary Chris Meagher, who briefed the press not too long ago. Smith: I think a lot of people get a very one-dimensional view of me. She is 36, a year younger than Buttigieg, which, Thank God. 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. [19], In 2021, Smith worked closely with then-governor Andrew Cuomo, and advised him on how to respond to the sexual harassment allegations against him. And what Pete understood, and why I believed in him, was that to beat Trump, we didnt need to be him. Whats especially important to me, is, you know, making sure to take a lot of young women under my wing. Lis has absolutely no fear, said Jeff Smith, a former Missouri lawmaker who dated Smith for four years and considers her one of his closest friends. [24], Smith authored the 2022 book Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story. She and Spitzer then jetted to Jamaica to get away from the media frenzy. And that was our media strategy. Political strategist Lis Smith reveals in her new book how The Post exposed that she was dating prostitution-loving former Gov. But that didnt work out. With Bill de Blasio, that was a different situation. Smith: Oh, thats simple. Shes on her phone talking to another Buttigieg aide. Wren: What do you look for in a candidate? He was out there. That cut both ways during the campaign for Buttigieg, particularly when a white police officer killed a Black man in South Bend. And he is as squeaky clean behind the scenes as he is in front of the camera. He was a once-in-a-generation talent, someone who perfectly met the moment, says Smith. In that moment, in retrospect, it seems like Harris couldve ended Buttigiegs campaign. Did I think hed sit on the floor with me and sing Kumbaya and tell me it would be all okay? In the car, wed go back and forth on random trivia, and pulling up things on Google. She was my girlfriend., Later, says Smith, when he was a state lawmaker, I would say to her, I am going to talk to such-and-such group, and she would tell me, This is what you should say. And I would say to her, Lis, I am not going to say that, its not my style, its not going to work. And when it happened, the story was her. [6] She became communications director for the Democratic Governors Association in 2011. Its an inherent conflict of interest. One thing I find incredibly admirable about him is what you see is what you get. Buttigieg reignited Smiths love for politics, she says, after a really difficult 2015 and 2016 due to her breakup with former New York Gov. She advised a couple of governors still left in office, and started taking on more nonprofit clients. Between 1987 and 2013, Spitzer had been married to Silda Wall Spitzer. Letting Pete be Pete. Im horrified. Spitzer leaves the apatment of Lis Smith at 5:44 a.m. on Dec. 19. Its a local-politics mentality to find the people that are going to be telling this story, and if nothing else, making sure they have a real understanding of who you are. Its about getting to know people and them getting to know you, Buttigieg says when I see him after the Brooklyn fundraiser, where he at least pretends to recall our earlier meeting and what we talked about. Chuck Kennedy/PFA. Id made some faulty assumptions, but the first was that my loyalty to de Blasio or my competence at my job mattered. Both Miller and Smith come off as quasi-heros, semi-savants, pseudo-sociologists. 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. 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. I thought everybody knew that.. We are humble and kind, to quote Tim McGraw. Adam Wren: In the beginning, you scored the contract for this book based on your high-profile turn as a senior communications adviser to Pete Buttigieg. Wren: You mentioned that some people might view you as radioactive. She had an "itch," the political consultant writes in her. The final indignity, she said, is that de Blasios team team wanted the statement to say her departure was unrelated to her dating Spitzer. 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