27 Apr 2023 19:44:36 She most. Smith: You never say never. Political Hotshot Lis Smith Talks Women in Politics, Democrats' Future and the Secret to Buttigieg's Success. You recently signed on with Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval. We knew the McKinsey stuff would be it, but he was bound by an NDA. Its a role that clearly lends itself to his skill set. 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? I think we saw that Kamalas attack on Biden was obviously was pretty pointed. [7] When Spitzer lost the primary election, she was hired on the communications team for Bill de Blasio's New York City mayoral campaign. 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. Democratic strategist: Lis Smith goes from 'pro' to 'bimbo' in one day Its sad, but our politics isnt built to deal with people who are reasonable. Because 2015 and 2016 were really difficult times in my life. Buttigieg campaigns in Iowa shortly after officially announcing his bid for the Democratic nomination for president. padding:10px; Pete Buttigieg is the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. I think that she gets a lot of unfair criticism. To Know Mayor Pete, Look at His Top Adviser's Underreported Past - Vice RT @UChiPolitics: How do we avoid rookie mistakes on the campaign trail? In 2012 Lis directed President Barack Obama's rapid-response team for his re-election effort. What do I get if I pay for your consulting services? Other candidates, they dont need to do it. In some ways, he came across as a Midwestern dad before he was, in fact, a Midwestern dad. Smith marched him to the front of where the national and New York press were gathered, telling him, Are you ready for your first gaggle? He stayed until the matter was exhausted. if(document.getElementsByClassName("reference").length==0) if(document.getElementById('Footnotes')!==null) document.getElementById('Footnotes').parentNode.style.display = 'none'; Communications: Alison Graves Carley Allensworth Abigail Campbell Sarah Groat Erica Shumaker Caitlin Vanden Boom He was a once-in-a-generation talent, someone who perfectly met the moment. And there was not a better antidote to Trump than Pete in terms of style, in terms of life experience, and in terms of his worldview. UChicago Institute of Politics (IOP) Letting Claire be Claire. Lis Smith (born October 15, 1982) is an American political strategist affiliated with the Democratic Party. Lis Smith on Pete Buttigieg's campaign bus during a four day tour of Iowa, September 23, 2019. I think thats always been part of Joe Bidens appeal. 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. Pete Buttigieg presidential campaign staff, 2020 - Ballotpedia Candidates often appoint elected officials and other important figures in their party's coalition as chairs of their national campaign and state-level campaigns.[1]. I love him. Smith: I think Ive got good relationships with people in the media. 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. [2] He suspended his campaign on March 1, 2020.[3]. Theres just no one who can do a TV interview like Pete Buttigieg. They lead with emotion. 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The Women Running 2020 Presidential Campaigns | Marie Claire She has a 3-day-old copy of the New York Post in her bag. It was a long shot. Bill de Blasio, too. Fantasy football we were competitive about that. From the second I met Pete, I knew that there was something special about him. And its going to be really important to have a woman sort of leading the charge on these issues, who is able to really empathize with the despair a lot of women are feeling. He lives in New York. Also how many, like, mind-games campaigns are playing with others. That even in the age of Twitter, that especially in the age of Twitter, people dont really care about gaffes. 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. 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. Hes someone who is very special to me, and I hope hes always a part of my life. Based on that experience, how should Democrats make gains in those kinds of states in 2022? And what Pete understood, and why I believed in him, was that to beat Trump, we didnt need to be him. Chuck Kennedy/PFA. Wren: Could see a political career for him? Buttigieg adviser called Christine Blasey Ford 'looney tunes' - Fox News 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. 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? There are so many talented Democratic elected officials across the country. 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. Keep in mind she was 22 at the time, Smith said. Her father was a partner at the white-shoe law firm Sidley Austin. The bad candidates are people who are insecure, who put their finger in the wind, who dont trust their instincts enough and dont have the backbone to do the right things. 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. Lis Smith - Fellow - Georgetown University's Institute of - LinkedIn The table below shows a sampling of the candidate's 2020 national campaign staff members, including the campaign manager and some senior advisors, political directors, communication directors, and field directors. They know who they are and will not let consultants, pundits, whoever, change them. 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. That is not how she ran his race. It gives me so much joy when I sit down for a Zoom with Mallory McMorrow which is supposed to be 15 minutes and it turns into two hours, and I get goosebumps again. She was the deputy campaign director for Martin O'Malley's 2016 presidential campaign. Alums [of the campaign] are on the Hill. | Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ABC via Getty Images. Shes had some very forceful moments as vice president. They have grown to like and trust each other. Eliot Spitzer and Lis Smith Break Up - TOTPI Everyone thought I was crazy. He stood out obviously because of his height, but he was one of those guys that was almost overly enthusiastic about knocking on doors and making phone calls, to the point that everyone else around the office sort of rolled their eyes. Its just a personal part of my book. Smith went to Dartmouth. Your knowledge of the process? The one thing you saw on our campaign in 2020 is that everywhere we went, he was introduced by young leaders, young mayors. Cuomo recruits former de Blasio campaign aide who dated Eliot Spitzer On Sunday, Bill de Blasio put out a statement in a New York Post story in his own name defending himself against the portrait you paint of him in your book as obsessively paranoid. If you were working for him, and a book like yours came out authored by someone else, how would you have advised him to address the situation? Mistakes that Ive made with media. Otherwise, I would kill myself. Which is to say that Buttigieg may know seven languages and carry around Ulysses and sit in with the South Bend Orchestra on piano, but as far as his top aide is concerned, it is only because he has an extra year on her. Lets just blow it out. This is an election where the women voters are going to be really important. A better response that is informed by all the facts is the most effective way to respond. .center-table-mobile { I am a liberal Democrat, but I was so into the McCain thing. Smith: I think a lot of people get a very one-dimensional view of me. Why? Oftentimes its not going to be found in Washington, D.C. I fucking love John McCain. Sign up for our newsletter. 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. And as you saw on Fox News Sunday, as I went to bed last night, [his clip] has 8 million views. 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. Part of it with him is the persona. If you had any balls you would have said what I told you to say.. I, in those races, became extremely battle-tested. [11] Smith, who worked as a spokesperson for the PAC since her hire in 2013, then transitioned to the role of deputy campaign manager. He knows the importance of building up our bench. Wren: Theres a part of Pete that is a little wonky, a little square. 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. It took THREE journalists to come up with this throwaway article: Lis Smith, senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign: ".I think it's probably something we have no idea about." https://politi.co/427TvyH via @politico. He's on his way into a black car to do Maddow. Sign up for POLITICO Magazines email of the weeks best, delivered to your inbox every Friday morning. border-radius:50%; . 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. How has it turned out so far? . I mean, for God's sake, we don't even pay that much attention to governors. Lets be real, Adam. Liz Truss locked in row over '12k bill at Chevening country retreat' The spotlight turns to Kamala Harris, the only Black candidate on stage. 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. My observation, said Axelrod, who worked with Smith on Obamas 2012 reelection campaign, is that she is the quiet hero of his emergence.. Staff are presented alongside their positions in the campaign, their most recent positions prior to the campaign, and their Twitter handles. Eliot Spitzer]. They need to understand how the political process works. Now she has carefully orchestrated her own books launch doling out choice anecdotes to her beloved New York tabloids: De Blasio didnt trust NYPD security to keep secrets, ex-aide Lis Smith claims, blared one headline, which elicited an on the record statement from De Blasio himself. 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. 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. Her next feature documentary, "Tribalism is Killing Us," which resulted . 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. Click here. 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. And so my advice would just be, get out there more, especially with Kamala, go out there more. } | Elijah Nouvelage/REUTERS. Here are links to the candidates' staff pages: Campaign staff plays an important role in the presidential primaries. 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. Lis Smith Says the Future of the Democratic Party Is Local: Q&a What makes him such a magnet for criticism on both the left and the right? Theres the article in the Atlantic where the writer met the mayor of South Bend, Indiana for a chicken tempura lunch in Manhattan. 36. Through the DNC race and afterward, Smith treated the national political press like it was another constituency that needed to be courted. Each was the political id the candidate couldnt, or wouldnt, express. 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. This is what day two looks like. And someone needs to be. Liz Truss is contesting a 12,000 bill for costs incurred relating to her use of the grace-and-favour Chevening estate she had access to as foreign secretary, the Mail on Sunday reported. Lis Smith - Ballotpedia @lynnsweet, @kaitlancollins, @Lis_Smith and @PriscillaWT are talking how do we avoid rookie mistakes on the campaign trail. She has worked on more than 20 Democratic campaigns, according to her Twitter bio and is a graduate. What is Lis Smiths secret sauce? From the second I met Pete, I knew that there was something special about him. During the campaign, Forbes considered her one of "the essential people to follow on Twitter," saying:[5], The New York Times noted that Smith's rapid response tweets "were a big reason that the campaign was able to define Mitt Romney before he could define himself."[4]. Oh really, you didnt know that? Wren: Much has been made about Trump Derangement Syndrome this idea that, true or not, he scrambles rational political responses from otherwise reasonable people. Wren: He rehabilitated you and taught you to love the political process again. Smith also gets points for interacting. The book gives an unvarnished behind-the-scenes look at campaign strategy and press relations. Gharavi is a BAFTA and Sundance-nominated filmmaker. I figured he was special and it couldnt hurt if everybody knows who he is.. She texts the buzziest bits to her sprawling network of journalistic contacts, who tweet them out. Acting. The more people see Bill de Blasio, the less they like him. And it was the first time Id worked in politics that Id ever felt that way. He weighed in after the Supreme Court decision. It will codify Roe v. Wade. How did that manifest itself with Pete, the first candidate youve ever advised who was approximately the same age as you? 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. Since a lot of your book is about relationships in politics, could you start out by telling me about the time you met Bill de Blasio when you were volunteering for the John Edwards 2004 presidential campaign in New Hampshire? Wren: How is the Lis Smith depicted in this book different from the Lis Smith in the popular political imagination? Im horrified. Politics is really personal to me. 'I Had Been Seen as a Little Radioactive': Lis Smith - POLITICO Do you think the lack of in-person events hurt them later on in building a relationship with the eventual White House press corps? Smith: Im not going to touch that with a 10-foot pole. "[1], Presidential candidates will typically have a national staff, which is overseen by a campaign manager and assisted by political consultants, senior advisors, professional polling firms, and key stakeholders such as interest group leaders and major financial supporters. Smith: One of the things Ive learned over my time in politics is that youve got to let your candidates be themselves. He was thinking of running for chair of the Democratic National Committee. 'I Want Him on Everything': Meet the Woman Behind the - POLITICO It was a reporter from BuzzFeed News, waiting to take my place. 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. Wren: Did you have a good handle before the campaign on Petes vulnerabilities? [8] On the de Blasio campaign, Smith worked with campaign manager Bill Hyers, the campaign manager for Martin O'Malley's 2016 presidential campaign. "I basically blacked out for the next ten minutes as he talked about everything from Fiorello La Guardia to Buddhism," she wrote of her first job interview with the future mayor. 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. How do you think the decline of local news has affected campaigns? The most important thing is theres no one way to be a Democrat no matter what any of these lefty groups in Washington say, and we cannot expect candidates in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Ohio and Arizona and North Carolina to check off every box on the progressive party purity test. 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. Wren: Lets talk about another Cincinnatian: Joey Burrow, your Bengals politically outspoken quarterback. Hes someone who is involved fighting childhood hunger. Maybe a story that would be 80-20 bad you can get down to 60-40 bad, and that little bit is worth it.. 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. 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. Now after advising Pete Buttigieg, she's published a must-read memoir, 'Any Given Tuesday: A Political. These results are automatically generated from Google. Click here. 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. Martin OMalley, who shed worked for, performing poorly in the Iowa caucuses. Smith said McCaskill chose to campaign aggressively in rural counties, which likely contributed to her narrow win over Talent. [5] For a larger list of national campaign staff, visit Democracy in Action. We were on the bus in New Hampshire the week we were playing each other and furiously checking our lineups. There is a huge bench of mayors, of governors, of state legislators, like Mallory McMorrow, who we should be lifting up, we should be using as spokespeople for the Democratic Party. She was the spokesperson for Pete Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign. Spitzer and Smith stayed together for more than two years, with the tabloids following them pretty much the whole time. Smith has made a name for herself in recent months by working with a new crop of candidates in the middle of the country, including Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow (center). Over a tumultuous two decades in politics, Lis Smith has seen a thing or two. What the decline of local media means is that the way that voters will get their information about candidates will come increasingly from paid media, from mail pieces and TV ads, and we all know that is not where you get the full truth. What do all the good candidates youve worked for have in common, and what do the bad candidates have in common? In 2018, she served as the political press coordinator for Pete Buttigieg's campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. And I do think that some of that savvy did come out of innovations they had to make during the 2020 campaign. They are doing things that are more directly relevant to peoples lives. Show this thread. And I talked about that in the book. [3] Buttigieg received the most pledged delegates in the Iowa caucuses . Buttigieg has gotten a number of lavish long-form features, so many that some have jokingly wondered whether Smith is getting paid by the profile. 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. Over a tumultuous two decades in politics, Lis Smith has seen a thing or two. The good candidates have humility. 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. 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So it was just sort of the perfect confluence of all these things where that yin and yang dynamic got us together. [2] He suspended his campaign on March 1, 2020. There were, Smith guesses, probably 150 such meetings with the national press corps, and when he traveled across the country, speaking to local county party dinners and fundraisers across the Midwest and Great Plains, they would make time for one-on-ones with the local political press there, too. [2] Smith previously worked on campaigns for former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D. But I appreciate his courage in being willing to speak out about it. Across the street, Brooklyn hipsters of all ages and manner of facial hair are lining up around the block at a bowling alley/music venue to catch Buttigieg at a fundraiser. Youve got this hard-nosed New York-style political operative and this friendly Hoosier mayor, he said. Wren: Youve worked in a lot of red states South Dakota, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio. While known most recently for her ingenuity behind Pete Buttigieg's democratic presidential campaign, Smith was also a key player in Senator John Edward's (D) presidential run. Now that they have achieved liftoff, as it were, Smith is preparing for the next part of the campaign. The table below shows the candidate's 2020 early primary state directors and state communications directors. In real life, I have a really close-knit family. George Bush had Karl Rove; Bill Clinton had James Carville. Its that everyday when I go into work to try and get these people elected its because it will impact lives. She wants to know if Id seen Buttigieg answer a question about the Notre Dame fire from a French TV station, in French. 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. It takes the edge off a bit. Smith: Dont make me praise Chris Meagher. Lis Smith is an American campaign manager affiliated with the Democratic Party. I think thats probably the biggest misconception about me. But I understand that what I do isnt just a game. Your Bengals fandom and their Super Bowl run is a part of the book. Smiths mother is a descendent of a signer of the Mayflower Compact, and a cousin of lead Watergate investigator Sam Ervin. Eight hundred have showed up. 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? Even people like Terry McAuliffe and Claire McCaskill, who both have outsized personalities. And those are the people that we should be elevating. Policy: Christopher Nelson Caitlin Styrsky Molly Byrne Jimmy McAllister Samuel Postell 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. The way Smith tells it, she thought she was done with presidential politics after OMalleys campaign fizzled in 2016. Spitzer spokeswoman Lisa Linden said the break-up was amicable. Except then it didnt. Smith: Are we talking about the same Pete Buttigieg? Dont miss it! Shes a Black half-South-Indian woman. Lis Smith The Movie Database (TMDB) She is 36, a year younger than Buttigieg, which, Thank God.