How consequential was that looking back? Candidates and the people around them can get so spun up about things, and when you get spun up you make the worst mistakes, she says. Lis Smith Wiki Bio: Age, Husband, Net Worth, Children, Education, Career, Family, LinkedIn. Smith: Oh, thats simple. | Elijah Nouvelage/REUTERS. You dont reach out to the 35-year-old gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, because you think it will be an easy ride.. That maybe once he double-dipped his fry at Barnabys? 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. And so, she says, she cant talk right now. Democratic operative Lis Smith on Monday savaged her former boss, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, over his municipal coronavirus response, while offering effusive praise for Gov. Wren: One of the theses of Petes campaign was that mayors are on the front lines of democracy. Politics is literally a matter of life and death. Smith: Are we talking about the same Pete Buttigieg? January 25 2022 01:38 PM A prosecution barrister has told a non-jury court it will hear evidence that Lisa Smith's husband took a sniper course on her advice while he was carrying out border. Pete helped pull back that part of me, because while that might work when youre dealing in the New York tabloids, that doesnt sell as well in the Des Moines Register. But another thing is that Im not someone whos just worked in New York. And if I can help you with my experience, my profile, my contacts, to do that, then I will do it. (Todd Maisel/New York Daily News) "They're both consenting adults and can do what they want," said a former Spitzer. Theres the article in the Atlantic where the writer met the mayor of South Bend, Indiana for a chicken tempura lunch in Manhattan. Lis knew that she had to build wide to build up, said Stephanie Cutter, who also worked on Obamas 2012 effort. 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. 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. I want Democrats to read this book. Wren: What is your relationship with Pete like now? Smith: Joey Burrow is an incredible leader. I couldnt talk to the media, and they didnt lift a finger to defend me.. Wren: Fair enough. He weighed in after the Supreme Court decision. Shes a Black half-South-Indian woman. But seriously. Letting Terry be Terry. From the second I met Pete, I knew that there was something special about him. Smith is 31; a Dartmouth graduate who apparently has a thing for bad boys. New transcripts and . And what Pete understood, and why I believed in him, was that to beat Trump, we didnt need to be him. Smith said she felt violated after learning she was being followed. Eliot Spitzer while working for incoming Mayor Bill de Blasio.. Even people like Terry McAuliffe and Claire McCaskill, who both have outsized personalities. What do I get if I pay for your consulting services? [11][12] In 2018, Smith became spokeswoman for Andrew Cuomo's successful re-election campaign, who had endorsed the political entity. The American, democratic campaign communication specialist Lis Smith is a well-known face in American politics. After winning the election, the candidate joined the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), and Smith consulted briefly for the group. 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And it was a running joke between us: I was like, I cant listen to you talk about smart sewers one more time, or I will lose my mind. He loves that stuff. 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. He laid out his case for how a millennial municipal official from a town the size of a New York City Council district could somehow seize the Democratic nomination. In the car, wed go back and forth on random trivia, and pulling up things on Google. 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?. 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. Sign up for our newsletter. 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. 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. In 2001, she graduated Bronxville High School. 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. Because Pete is so Midwestern nice, I think it was helpful for him to have someone who could help kick him into another gear, and sort of push him to have the more aggressive instinct you need to break through in a presidential race. Alums [of the campaign] are on the Hill. [17] She has been included in Fortune's 40 Under 40 in Government and Politics,[18] and Crain's list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in New York. And you are going to pay me to be really quick and really aggressive and to take on Mitt Romney? But that didnt work out. [16] Business Insider considered her to be one of the 10 most powerful women running the 2020 presidential campaigns. Yeah. 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. The guy didnt have time to say hello before Smith could hear screaming over the line. Your Bengals fandom and their Super Bowl run is a part of the book. Wren: I want a window into how you advise candidates amid a crisis. While working for the Obama campaign she met David Axelrod, whom Smith considers a mentor. What else was the oppo they were dropping? There is nothing too big for her. (For the record, I can totally envision him sitting on the floor singing Kumbaya just not for me. Wren: Youre often credited with vaulting Pete from the mayor of Indianas fourth-largest city to a member of Bidens cabinet. 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. Click here. I see Donald Trump win the White House, which like everyone else, Im flabbergasted. [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. She orders a beer, downs it and orders another. 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. None of those races were particularly easy. Wren: Theres a part of Pete that is a little wonky, a little square. What I realized from my time working in politics is how much mystery there still is around this industry. This is what day two looks like. Its an inherent conflict of interest. News has confirmed her daughter Riley Keough welcomed a daughter with husband Ben Smith-Petersen, who mentioned their child at the singer's. Mistakes that Ive made with media. Lis Smith is recording this call. 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. 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. 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. 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. After 20 campaigns flacking for candidates such as Transportation Secretary and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill,. This isnt going as planned., She continued: As soon as I got Hari on the line, he filled me in. 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. I had that early rush of love on the brainI wasnt thinking clearly. 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. He was thinking of running for chair of the Democratic National Committee. She texts the buzziest bits to her sprawling network of journalistic contacts, who tweet them out. Of course, then I would, Id get a tepid reception and she would never let me hear the end of it. After his loss in the primary, Smith went to work on the winning election campaign and then the transition of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Lis Smith on Pete Buttigieg's campaign bus during a. That even in the age of Twitter, that especially in the age of Twitter, people dont really care about gaffes. From her days as a college intern for John Edwards to her own brush with the New York tabloids, the book traces her entertaining path to the height of the American political consultant class. And when he was asked about that, he gave a really strong answer, and he took responsibility for things he did do in South Bend or things he didnt do in South Bend. Theres a public Terry and a private Terry. 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. In a crisis, the most important thing to do is to pause, to take a step back and get all the facts, and game out your response. The national security site has found fresh energy as a savvy, progressive attack dog in national politics. It is, she says, the only newspaper she subscribes to. Okay, so Im working for tabloid target #1 in Bill de Blasio. Dont miss it! He was out there. Usually, it was all good-natured. You deploy the F-bomb like Picasso used drypoint. It is a matter of life and death and we need every person on the field pic.twitter.com/LPqIS3zjnW. I think now more than ever, people need to understand how the media works. [10], In 2016, she was the spokesperson for Marisol Alcantara's successful New York State Senate campaign. And also keep in mind she was wasnt working on my campaign. In what ways does your brand benefit from Petes, and in what ways does Petes brand benefit from yours? I lost the media war thatId thought I commanded, Smith said. 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. Lis Smith Net Worth 2023, Age, Height, Relationships, Married, Dating, Family, Wiki Biography. Eliot Spitzer wasted no time Wednesday in cozying up to his new girlfriend's family. They are already well-known.. She knew Axelrod from 2012, when she worked as director of rapid response for President Barack Obamas reelection effort. She did, however, date a married man while serving as a campaign aide to former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. All Rights Reserved. [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. 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. Can I tell you something very off the record, she texts. Lis Smith (born October 15, 1982) is an American political strategist affiliated with the Democratic Party. 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. 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. Weve got that Joey Burrow swag, but he does have humility to him. 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. [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. Because it would drive me nuts during the campaign hearing all his wonky, wonky talk about infrastructure, about roads, about smart sewers. My end goalsbeing able to stay in New York with Eliot and serve as the New York City mayors press secretarywere in sight. I had gone through this awful breakup [with former New York Gov. I dont live and breathe politics every day. Her plan is to emulate maybe the best-known and most successful insurgent move of recent campaign history: John McCains 2000 Straight Talk Express. She gravitates to candidates who are challenging and testing the status quo. Published on July 13, 2022 06:12 PM. She has been actively involved in politics after the completion of her graduation from Dartmouth . He was a once-in-a-generation talent, someone who perfectly met the moment. It was by no means an obvious career move for Smith. 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. Our meeting was part of a strategy, one run with surprising sophistication and efficacy for a candidate whose highest-profile gig so far is a local office in the fourth-biggest city in Indiana. 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