lis smith husband

Political strategist Lis Smith reveals in her new book how The Post exposed that she was dating prostitution-loving former Gov. Lis Smith who also served as spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio and worked on President Barack Obama's re-election campaign helped spark the media frenzy around the 37-year-old gay. I want political people to read this book, because I think its fun. Her plan is to emulate maybe the best-known and most successful insurgent move of recent campaign history: John McCains 2000 Straight Talk Express. 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. I couldnt talk to the media, and they didnt lift a finger to defend me.. 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. 90 minutes with one of America's top political consultants. 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. Hes been a guest on BuzzFeeds morning news show, been featured on Vices nightly news show and sat down with a couple of the guys from Barstool Sports. And no, politics is my love. And maybe I shouldve gone to law school. Smith: Dont make me praise Chris Meagher. Smith, standing behind Buttigieg as he campaigns at various events in New York this April. 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. [44] She describes herself as an "oyster-tarian," which she defines as a vegetarian who will eat oysters. Wren: You and Pete have very different brands. Smith: Yeah. I consider him a friend . [44] Smith plays the violin.[44]. Youve got this hard-nosed New York-style political operative and this friendly Hoosier mayor, he said. 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.. Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images. Wren: He rehabilitated you and taught you to love the political process again. While her work history list might be lengthy, her dating track record isnt very long. 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. [24], Smith authored the 2022 book Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story. 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 when it happened, the story was her. Pete Buttigieg emerges as Democratic rock star proclaimed Business Insider during the race. Let Pete be Pete. Win or lose, she's turned an unknown into a serious . I love him. Through the DNC race and afterward, Smith treated the national political press like it was another constituency that needed to be courted. And I have a nice, quiet life where I dont live in Washington, D.C. Even people like Terry McAuliffe and Claire McCaskill, who both have outsized personalities. The spotlight turns to Kamala Harris, the only Black candidate on stage. This story has been shared 127,012 times. 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. Smith: I think its been great. [11][12] In 2018, Smith became spokeswoman for Andrew Cuomo's successful re-election campaign, who had endorsed the political entity. You couldnt have pulled off that strategy with a Bill de Blasio. Id worked for former [Former Maryland Gov.] I think now more than ever, people need to understand how the media works. [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. You never get in a fight with someone whos trying to promote a book. But I dont know whats inside him. Did I think I was going to walk into his office and tell him that I was dating Eliot Spitzer? Inside the Shrinking Newsroom of the Paper That Shapes the PrimariesBy Tim Alberta. 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. Are you kidding me? The book was praised for its insight into the personal and political fortunes of politicians she advised. Wren: One of your legacies is the coaching tree, to use an apt football metaphor, that you left behind on the Pete campaign. [9][41] From 2013 to 2015, she had a relationship with her former boss, New York governor Eliot Spitzer. 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. 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. Obama had David Axelrod. 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. Hes someone who is very special to me, and I hope hes always a part of my life. What makes him such a magnet for criticism on both the left and the right? Smith said she learned a hard lesson: Even a professional cant try to manage a personal crisis without help. Most people do have nerdy sides to them. They are already well-known.. Wren: Youve worked in a lot of red states South Dakota, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio. It was from Montego Bay that Smith and de Blasio announced she would not be joining his administration. 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. Smith tells Politico:. 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. Your Bengals fandom and their Super Bowl run is a part of the book. 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. Its really fun. They have grown to like and trust each other. It was a slim path. 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.. Maybe they wont focus on the former reigning champion [Spitzer], for once. TV news executives are calling, she says, emailing, now complaining that Buttigieg isnt doing their shows often enough. That maybe once he double-dipped his fry at Barnabys? Because even power needs a day off. Published on July 13, 2022 06:12 PM. But the Post discovered where they were. 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., As a flack, you dont always understand what it feels like to be a principal, what it feels like to be under scrutiny. Wren: You write pretty transparently in the book about times youve been fooled by a candidate. Shes had some very forceful moments as vice president. She is practically shaking with excess energy. All Rights Reserved. Offers may be subject to change without notice. What do I get if I pay for your consulting services? 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. 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. He weighed in after the Supreme Court decision. I think thats probably the biggest misconception about me. In her book, Smith also called another client she worked for,ex-Gov. Why that works with Pete, whatever you want to call it the earnest side of him, this nerdy side of him, the wonky side of him was because it was authentically Pete. So it was just sort of the perfect confluence of all these things where that yin and yang dynamic got us together. Except then it didnt. 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. 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. Theyre in the agencies. She texts the buzziest bits to her sprawling network of journalistic contacts, who tweet them out. I am a liberal Democrat, but I was so into the McCain thing. Does something like Buttigieg Derangement Syndrome exist? It might not get you the votes, but I am not the political director. Well, of course someone running for president would need to talk about it with me first, right? She is a talented communicator. The one thing you saw on our campaign in 2020 is that everywhere we went, he was introduced by young leaders, young mayors. Mistakes Ive made in my professional life. 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. Our resort was more Leave It to Beaver than Debbie Does Dallas,' she claimed. | Scott Olson/Getty Images, Lis has an insurgent mentality, said Axelrod, a top aide for both of President Obamas campaigns. In what ways does your brand benefit from Petes, and in what ways does Petes brand benefit from yours? The photographer had captured Eliot and me exchanging loving looks as wed returned from a late-night dinner at a restaurant on my block.. Its that everyday when I go into work to try and get these people elected its because it will impact lives. How badly," she asks me, are you trying to fuck me over right now?, Interactive: The Lo-Fi Voices That Speak for AmericaBy M. Scott Mahaskey and Zack Stanton. But to me it was more just revealing [the] nature of the sliding doors of campaigns, and I think thats what youre getting at. Wren: How is the Lis Smith depicted in this book different from the Lis Smith in the popular political imagination? Smith tried to outfox The Post by going to the Daily News as a pre-emptive strike in an effort to get a more favorable story planted about her relationship with Spitzer. Oversaturation? Why would a Pete Buttigieg hire me? Before a debate, you have no idea how much gossip is going around. What is Lis Smiths secret sauce? Smith: It made me want to be better at my job. Mistakes Ive made in my private life. But I appreciate his courage in being willing to speak out about it. By. After McCaskill's win, she joined the 2007 Kentucky gubernatorial campaign of Bruce Lunsford and Greg Stumbo as traveling press secretary. But more broadly, they are diagnosing the ills of the party that paid their housing for years. In some ways, he came across as a Midwestern dad before he was, in fact, a Midwestern dad. And its really heartening because you realize the future of the Democratic Party is really bright, and that all we need to do is help lift these people up. How could they claim my dating life had nothing to do with the decision when it was the sole reason I was leaving,? she said. Wren: Much has been made about Trump Derangement Syndrome this idea that, true or not, he scrambles rational political responses from otherwise reasonable people. Weve seen a lot of cataclysmic things happen. 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. He doesnt yell and scream, take the most extreme positions on issues, or tweet incendiary things. [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. 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. Still, she said, I wasnt exactly a PR neophyte. I would do that for free.). And yet you signed on anyway. How Trump Took the Shine Off Washingtons Glitziest NightBy John F. Harris and Daniel Lippman. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. 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. I thought everybody knew that.. [4] In 2006, she went to work on Claire McCaskill's Senate campaign in Missouri. But that didnt work out. I remember hearing from other consultants, Why is he going out there speaking seven languages? Oftentimes its not going to be found in Washington, D.C. 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. Then there was what I did next: jumped off the cliff. 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. The New York tabs may have sharpened her game, but people who've known her for years say Smith came ready for the fight. 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. She gravitates to candidates who are challenging and testing the status quo. 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 2022, Published 11:56 a.m. The good candidates have humility. Its why in one day we do CBS Sunday Morning, The View, Teen Vogue and the New Yorker. The late Lisa Marie Presley is a grandmother. Theres the article in the Atlantic where the writer met the mayor of South Bend, Indiana for a chicken tempura lunch in Manhattan. This sign-up form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. With her signature black bob, dark sunglasses, and red lipstick, Lis Smith cuts a striking figure in the world of politics . Disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, 54, and his new girlfriend Lis Smith, 31, may have enjoyed a relaxing family Christmas, but their cosy domesticity could soon be upset after it . Did it worry you that he might not be the candidate with whom people most wanted to have a beer or should we say, get lit with? Terry McAuliffe, and President Barack Obama, Lis Smith is finally flacking for Lis Smith. Smith says thats worth it. They know who they are and will not let consultants, pundits, whoever, change them. [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. Wren: Fair enough. I had to deal with candidates who, unfortunately, did not give me all the facts, and you cant effectively handle a crisis. This is what day two looks like. For example, you write in your book about going to a pop-up bar in South Bend with Pete and his best friend and campaign manager, Mike Schmuhl. 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. Dont miss it! This includes with her own boss. And especially on far-leftist DSA Twitter, Im basically just depicted as a mix between Lady Macbeth and Rasputin in a wig, that Im like some soulless political operatives. I should know: Last October, I had my own intimate, off-the-record encounter with Mayor Pete. The White House Correspondents Dinner is shrinking back to the boring awards ceremony journalists claimed to prefer. One thing I find incredibly admirable about him is what you see is what you get. The New York Post is looking into you and Eliot, Smith wrote, adding, Well, fk. Thats a pretty ballsy thing to do. 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." But it is kind of fascinating to watch., Smith met Buttigieg on the recommendation of Axelrod and former Maryland Governor Martin OMalley. But is it undermining its own side? 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. In that same vein, I know that there were people in the transportation secretarys inner circle that thought his taking that position wasnt the best idea. 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. [The vice presidency] is probably the toughest, most thankless job in Washington D.C. 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. Theres a public Terry and a private Terry. The great media disruption comes for the Des Moines Register. That strategy with a Bill de Blasio announced she would not be joining administration! That.. [ 4 ] in 2006, she said, I had my own intimate off-the-record. And in what ways does your brand benefit from yours lis smith husband Manhattan politicians advised... The Des Moines Register then there was what I did next: jumped off the cliff, Story. Her New book how the Post exposed that she was dating prostitution-loving former Gov., well, lis smith husband,... It was from Montego Bay that Smith and de Blasio to manage personal., whoever, change them hearing from other consultants, pundits, whoever change... 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