But it has a clear parallel to Smiths relentless scheduling of meetings between Buttigieg and reportersan audaciously direct way to connect with reporters that bought the campaign pretty good press. Whitney Whitis. But seriously. Sign up for POLITICO Magazines email of the weeks best, delivered to your inbox every Friday morning. Oftentimes its not going to be found in Washington, D.C. What else was the oppo they were dropping? Chuck Kennedy/PFA. Why? Spitzer leaves the apatment of Lis Smith at 5:44 a.m. on Dec. 19. And so my advice would just be, get out there more, especially with Kamala, go out there more. Published on July 13, 2022 06:12 PM. [9] Smith was credited with implementing a campaign strategy that emphasized one-on-one interactions between Buttigieg and the press which helped raise his profile from the mayor of the fourth-largest Indiana city to a top-tier presidential candidate. Ive always tried to be very grounded. It went on like this, just cursing up a blue streak for like two minutes., The aides mistake, Smith recalls, had to do with email: He failed to BCC reporters on a news release he blasted out. She wants to know if Id seen Buttigieg answer a question about the Notre Dame fire from a French TV station, in French. 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. It was by no means an obvious career move for Smith. This story has been shared 102,835 times. 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. A few weeks ago, a couple of hundred people expressed interest in this event. 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. What makes him such a magnet for criticism on both the left and the right? I know that the media loves to pick up on a gaffe here or there but the more comfortable you are, the more interviews you do, the more comfortable you get in front of the camera, and the less little slip ups matter. And he is as squeaky clean behind the scenes as he is in front of the camera. Lis Smith, the political communications specialist who helped bring Buttigieg to national prominence before he became President Joe Biden's Transportation secretary, revealed the decision in an . 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. [2][9], Her role in the campaign was explored by the 2021 documentary film Mayor Pete. 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. . After 20 campaigns flacking for candidates such as Transportation Secretary and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill,. Because he was a badass. Even people like Terry McAuliffe and Claire McCaskill, who both have outsized personalities. 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. It meant a lot to me as a woman to have someone like that. She did, however, date a married. The speed with which Buttegieg emerged has been astonishing, which happens to be the speed at which Smith works. 90 minutes with one of America's top political consultants. Pete made us all show up to give our 100 percent at work made us all better at our jobs. Its sad, but our politics isnt built to deal with people who are reasonable. Smith ended up dropping most of her other clients, politicians and nonprofits alike. Political strategist Lis Smith reveals in her new book how The Post exposed that she was dating prostitution-loving former Gov. Hes someone who is very special to me, and I hope hes always a part of my life. I want him on everything, she told me. Click here. 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. Theres the article in the Atlantic where the writer met the mayor of South Bend, Indiana for a chicken tempura lunch in Manhattan. 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. From the second I met Pete, I knew that there was something special about him. 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. Keep in mind she was 22 at the time, Smith said. This story has been shared 127,012 times. Just before he was sworn in, de Blasio yielded to Peysers prodding and cut Smith loose just before he moved into the mayors office. 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. That even in the age of Twitter, that especially in the age of Twitter, people dont really care about gaffes. In my book, I sort of get at this, but we are sort of an odd couple. Honesty is really, really important to handling a crisis because you have to have all the facts at your disposal. She doesnt give a fuck. Tommy McArdle. [31][32], Smith is also known for her commentary and analysis of United States politics. It was younger reporters, super-hungry reporters that really know how to use Twitter, people who can then go to a cocktail party and tell their friends they had a beer with this guy Pete Buttigieg three hours from now. The New York Post is looking into you and Eliot, Smith wrote, adding, Well, fk. She knew Axelrod from 2012, when she worked as director of rapid response for President Barack Obamas reelection effort. [2][11], She was the deputy campaign manager for the Martin O'Malley 2016 presidential campaign. Buttigieg campaigns in Iowa shortly after officially announcing his bid for the Democratic nomination for president. Lis knew that she had to build wide to build up, said Stephanie Cutter, who also worked on Obamas 2012 effort. [44] Smith plays the violin.[44]. William C. Lopez After leaving the eatery at around 12:30 a.m., Smith gave Spitzer a flirtatious look over her shoulder before the . I really did feel he treated me as an equal. The great media disruption comes for the Des Moines Register. Lis Smith is recording this call. Like we saw with Hillary Clinton, women are sometimes held to a different standard. Thats a pretty ballsy thing to do. Pete has no battle scars. 8,310 Followers, 856 Following, 219 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Lis Smith (@lis__smith) [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. Except then it didnt. And you just like have this moment, where youre like, Maybe this is it. [40], Smith dated Missouri politician Jeff Smith after meeting him at Dartmouth and handled some of his publicity during his campaign. After McCaskill's win, she joined the 2007 Kentucky gubernatorial campaign of Bruce Lunsford and Greg Stumbo as traveling press secretary. 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. Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten in February 2020. Smith: Im not going to say who. She is practically shaking with excess energy. They need to understand how the political process works. 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. He was out there. 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. That is not how she ran his race. That maybe once he double-dipped his fry at Barnabys? A lot of people thought that to beat Trump, you had to be Trump. She signed on as a consultant when he was laying the groundwork for a long-shot campaign to become the chair of the Democratic National Committee. Maybe they wont focus on the former reigning champion [Spitzer], for once. And someone needs to be. Wren: Fair enough. Inside the Shrinking Newsroom of the Paper That Shapes the PrimariesBy Tim Alberta. Its just that I think with both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that it would do the administration good to get out there a little bit more, and not to let the media and the Twitter dialogue get in your head, because most people dont speak like Pete Buttigieg in these beautiful, poetic, perfectly formed sentences. As a thirty-something mayor of a medium-size city, Buttigieg faced a credibility threshold with the national press. At the newsstand around the corner, you could buy a New York magazine with Buttigiegs beatifically smiling face splashed across the cover, and a New York Times with an A1 story about his time at Harvard. 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. I think its just shaped up to be a perfect role for him. She was also communications director for Dan Seals' 2008 Illinois House race. [24], Smith authored the 2022 book Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story. Why would a Pete Buttigieg hire me? I dont know if that delegate from Oklahoma is going be reading the Elle.com profile, but a lot of people are, and they should get to know Pete Buttigieg, she says. This story has been shared 151,667 times. The White House Correspondents Dinner is shrinking back to the boring awards ceremony journalists claimed to prefer. While working for the Obama campaign she met David Axelrod, whom Smith considers a mentor. I was blindly ambitious, versus blindly loyal, and where the shiny object of being a New York City press secretary was more alluring to me that I was willing to overlook his very clear deficiencies. Usually, it was all good-natured. Smith-Petersen held a protective arm around Keough's, 33, waist as he supported the actress on her first red carpet since the sudden death of her mother Lisa Marie Presley last month. 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. He weighed in after the Supreme Court decision. Both Miller and Smith come off as quasi-heros, semi-savants, pseudo-sociologists. Martin OMalley, who shed worked for, performing poorly in the Iowa caucuses. God, you fucked that up. Smith has been studying the effort, reaching out to reporters who were there, and has been in regular contact with John Weaver, who helped engineer it. The Simpsons actress Yeardley Smith is newly married and she and her husband have quite the . Smith, the famously aggressive political operative battle-honed in the brass knuckles politics of New York City and in red-state political tilts, plotted the rollout of Buttigiegs longshot presidential campaign. And you know what their problem is? It was a slim path. Because he completely disrupts the idea of what a successful younger politician is. All Rights Reserved. But is it undermining its own side? I want Republicans to read this book. From the second I met Pete, I knew that there was something special about him. Its why in one day we do CBS Sunday Morning, The View, Teen Vogue and the New Yorker. 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.. Elliot Spitzer (pictured), the election of Donald Trump and former Maryland Gov. 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. Its an inherent conflict of interest. Whats especially important to me, is, you know, making sure to take a lot of young women under my wing. You deploy the F-bomb like Picasso used drypoint. In 2001, she graduated Bronxville High School. I would say that these days, my vetting skills are maybe a little savvier. Maybe a story that would be 80-20 bad you can get down to 60-40 bad, and that little bit is worth it.. And I am,' Smith toldWalzak. She then switched to de Blasios general election campaign for mayor. How hard-chargingNew Yorkoperative Lis Smith helpedturn an obscure Indianamayorinto a national name. Politics is really personal to me. So I wanted to write a book to tell people, Hey, if you want to know what politics is like the ins and outs, the good, bad, and the ugly this is a book for you.. I think now more than ever, people need to understand how the media works. He was going up against George Bush, who had $50 million and he had $4 million, and so he just decides to tear up the playbook and put himself out there. And I have a nice, quiet life where I dont live in Washington, D.C. Most people do have corny sides to them. Political strategist Lis Smith isnt a married woman, though she may one day decide to tie the knot with a lucky somebody. Pete and I, you can probably tell are pretty laid-back, pretty low-key, I guess what you would call pretty Midwestern, said Mike Schmuhl, Buttigiegs campaign manager, who sounds like the host of a classical-music radio station who just returned from a yoga retreat. Smith: I think a lot of people get a very one-dimensional view of me. Because even power needs a day off. The former New York mayor later divorced his wife and was spotted in places like Montego Bay and a Knicks game cozying up with Smith. 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. In the past several months, Buttigieg has been not just all over cable and in the newspapers, but in Our Daily Planet, an environmental morning newsletter with just over 5,000 Twitter followers; in a financial planning podcast called Pete the Planner; and on West Wing Weekly, the obsessive episode-by-episode podcast breakdown of The West Wing. It was a reporter from BuzzFeed News, waiting to take my place. Through the DNC race and afterward, Smith treated the national political press like it was another constituency that needed to be courted. You write: Here we go said Larry Grisolano, Petes media consultant, stating the obvious. I fucking love John McCain. I was making the bet that I could run out the clock on disclosing our relationship until I got hired officially. In some ways, he came across as a Midwestern dad before he was, in fact, a Midwestern dad. Smith a Bengals fan believes quarterback Joe Burrow is a great leader with a clear social conscience, and she wouldnt rule out the possibility of him having a political career. 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. They are doing things that are more directly relevant to peoples lives. I figured he was special and it couldnt hurt if everybody knows who he is.. Seeing how Pete cuts through with people and what a truly effective messenger hes become for the Democratic Party, it makes you realize: Theres not just one Mayor Pete. This 35-Year-Old Mayor From Indiana Is Wowing National Democrats The New Republic declared. 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. On a cornier side, I think because he is such a good person, he made a lot of us better people throughout, because politics can be sort of a nasty business. POLITICO Weekend delivers gripping reads, smart analysis and a bit of high-minded fun. TV news executives are calling, she says, emailing, now complaining that Buttigieg isnt doing their shows often enough. Still, she said, I wasnt exactly a PR neophyte. Its really hard to do a hit piece on a guy who you are going to see the next morning over coffee and donuts. Its about hustling for opportunities. It was Lis telling me I need to fire my campaign manager, that the guy is a fucking idiot. 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