She recalled tellingde Blasio chief of staff Phil Walzak over drinks that she and Spitzer were a couple. Smith: Im not going to say who. 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.. [42] The relationship ended her role in de Blasio's mayoral campaign after tabloids published stories about it. He was a once-in-a-generation talent, someone who perfectly met the moment, says Smith. 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. Copyright 2023 Market Realist. 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. What do I get if I pay for your consulting services? Weve got that Joey Burrow swag, but he does have humility to him. February 5, 2020 younolly Biography 0. Wren: Based on how you characterized the vice presidency, would you ever counsel the transportation secretary, regardless of what year it is, against taking the vice presidency? There were very, very few women in positions of power. Maybe theres still time for me to choose a new life path because I felt extremely disillusioned. And so much of my book is about the power of belief and the element of belief that it takes to succeed in professional football, in politics, and hes the one who brought that belief back for me, and brought my love my pure love of politics back for me. [16] Business Insider considered her to be one of the 10 most powerful women running the 2020 presidential campaigns. She then switched to de Blasios general election campaign for mayor. Lis Smith Net Worth 2023, Age, Height, Relationships, Married, Dating, Family, Wiki Biography. Wren: Did you have a good handle before the campaign on Petes vulnerabilities? I know youre asking it in good faith, but I am declining to answer it in good faith. 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. Smith, who is a Bronx native, must be an intelligent woman, but going for the "bad boys" might . 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. Political strategist Lis Smith isnt a married woman, though she may one day decide to tie the knot with a lucky somebody. The attack we had been dreading was coming. And so when they feel like they are getting attacked, or their families are getting atttacked, they think staff can never talk to them on the level, and it is frustrating for principals, because they are like, You are just a kid, you dont know anything. But with me, I can tell them, This is what is going to happen, this is how we are going to deal with it. Letting Claire be Claire. Is it your relationship with reporters and cable bookers? She did, however, date a married. He was an incredible leader at Louisiana State University someone that team could rally around, and such a maturity to him. If Id thought things couldnt have gotten worse, I was wrong, she said. Smiths mother is a descendent of a signer of the Mayflower Compact, and a cousin of lead Watergate investigator Sam Ervin. Part of it with him is the persona. Smith: All the good candidates are comfortable in their own skin. The spinmeister hooked up with the still-married luv guv after working on his failed comeback bid to become city comptroller in 2013. I think thats probably the biggest misconception about me. ), Smith quipped. He shoots her a look and gives a mock shrug, as if it's an inside joke between the three of us, now old chums: I mean, a little I guess., Buttigieg makes an appearance on "The View." And then what?, she thought to herself. How Trump Took the Shine Off Washingtons Glitziest NightBy John F. Harris and Daniel Lippman. She ran it like he was trying to be president, getting him in front of as many microphones as she could. But seriously. Smith is 31; a Dartmouth graduate who apparently has a thing for bad boys. On the flip side of that, the most established, the most convention conventional political consultants werent going to go work for Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend. Whats that like? Click here. Because even power needs a day off. No. There was only one path for us to break through. Letting Terry be Terry. 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. 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. Does something like Buttigieg Derangement Syndrome exist? Ive always tried to be very grounded. And you know what their problem is? 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. Neither Eliot nor I was gonna win a gold medal in the not reckless competition at the Olympics. She wants to know if Id seen Buttigieg answer a question about the Notre Dame fire from a French TV station, in French. The Covid pandemic. Smith: I dont know, because I think one thing we saw was that he was pretty good about handling stuff. [11][12] In 2018, Smith became spokeswoman for Andrew Cuomo's successful re-election campaign, who had endorsed the political entity. (Todd Maisel/New York Daily News) "They're both consenting adults and can do what they want," said a former Spitzer. What do all the good candidates youve worked for have in common, and what do the bad candidates have in common? Smith: Im not going to touch that with a 10-foot pole. It wasnt really until 2012 when I worked for Barack Obama that I did find a really strong female mentor in Stephanie Cutter and I learned so much about my job, so much about politics, so much about how to effectively communicate from Stephanie Cutter. Im just going to leave it there because I thought it was funny. They feel like if they dont respond within two minutes, that the crisis is going to fester. There may be nobody more central to Mayor Pete's media successbesides the candidate himself, and arguably his social-media-savvy husband, Chasten Buttigiegthan Smith, who serves as a. After O'Malley's campaign, she advised several nonprofit organizations, and incumbent governors such as Montana governor Steve Bullock. This story has been shared 151,667 times. `Jesus, you always keep it interesting.'. Wren: What is your relationship with Pete like now? Political strategist Lis Smith casts Bill de Blasio as a "gross unshowered guy" who had good reason to be "pissed" about her romantic fling with Eliot Spitzer exposed by The Post especially. Mistakes Ive made in my private life. And it was the first time Id worked in politics that Id ever felt that way. If Im going to be honest about other people and their shortcomings, its really important for me to be honest about myself and my own shortcomings, Smith told me. Liz Smith, the syndicated gossip columnist who chronicled the lives of New York's rich and famous with such skill she became known as the "Dame of Dish . But Joe Biden is president today, and Kamala Harris is his vice president. But there have been a few times when Ive been around him when I knew something, a factoid or something he didnt know, and let me tell you, I fucking lord it all over him. George Bush had Karl Rove; Bill Clinton had James Carville. He has a clear social consciousness to him that you dont see in a lot of professional athletes. While working for the Obama campaign she met David Axelrod, whom Smith considers a mentor. Id made some faulty assumptions, but the first was that my loyalty to de Blasio or my competence at my job mattered. 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 I have a nice, quiet life where I dont live in Washington, D.C. which Politico Magazine excerpted last week. Theres just no one who can do a TV interview like Pete Buttigieg. Wren: Fair enough. They lead with emotion. After McCaskill's win, she joined the 2007 Kentucky gubernatorial campaign of Bruce Lunsford and Greg Stumbo as traveling press secretary. Meet the DNC dark horse: Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg is shaking up the race for Democratic chair, added Salon. 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. Lis Smith was supposed to become de Blasio's press secretary until The Post revealed that she was dating former Gov. Alums [of the campaign] are on the Hill. Jason Bergman for POLITICO. I know of one person in particular who said you were making a catastrophic career mistake working for a total nobody. But another thing is that Im not someone whos just worked in New York. It was by no means an obvious career move for Smith. 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. Wren: Tell me about that five percent credited to you. 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. Obama had David Axelrod. 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. 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. [43], Smith says she experiences stage fright. Most people do have corny sides to them. I consider him a friend . 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. But more broadly, they are diagnosing the ills of the party that paid their housing for years. The saga gave Smith an insight that most campaign operatives lack: what it's actually like to be that bug trapped under the magnifying glass. Are you kidding me? They just get swallowed up by the next news cycle, and never reach the voters who matter anyway. You never get in a fight with someone whos trying to promote a book. I think that she gets a lot of unfair criticism. But I appreciate his courage in being willing to speak out about it. And maybe I shouldve gone to law school. By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or updates from POLITICO and you agree to our privacy policy and terms of service. 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. Jeff Smith, her former boyfriend, recalls one time when he was running for office, his campaign managers phone rang. The White House Correspondents Dinner is shrinking back to the boring awards ceremony journalists claimed to prefer. [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. We've received your submission. 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. And when it happened, the story was her. Maybe Im done. The actress who is the daughter of the late Lisa Marie Presley and musician Danny Keough met. "[29] Lloyd Green, writing for The Guardian, called it "breezy and informative. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. They need to understand how the political process works. 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. Not long after that, at the presidential primary debate in Miami on June 27, you take us inside the greenroom backstage as you watched Pete get asked about this incredibly fraught moment. When you do more interviews, it reduces that gotcha instinct with the press, it reduces that cat and mouse game. ", Before they get in the car, I ask Buttigieg if Smith is being helpful in his campaign. 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. So I would obviously advise him not to respond. Political strategist Lis Smith reveals in her new book how The Post exposed that she was dating prostitution-loving former Gov. I knew from the beginningthat our relationship would be a big tabloid story when it became public. Also how many, like, mind-games campaigns are playing with others.
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