Dem Insider Talks John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Andrew Cuomo

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Well, from women and sports to women in politics, our next guest has been behind the scenes of 20 political campaigns, including that of former U.S. President Barack Obama. And she’s hoping to help young women following her own footsteps with her new book, “Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story”. Lis Smith charts the ups and downs of her professional and personal journey as she shares with Michel Martin.

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MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Bianna. Lis Smith, thanks so much for joining us.

LIS SMITH, AUTHOR, “ANY GIVEN TUESDAY: A POLITICAL LOVE STORY”: Thank you for having me.

MARTIN: So, your new book, “Any Given Tuesday”, it does a lot of things. I mean, it tells your personal story. It unpacks a lot about how the media and political players who work with each other, or don’t, as the case may be. It settles some scores, as political memoirs or want to do, of course. And it also tells some hard truths about being a woman in politics. And I was wondering, you know, what was your goal in writing it? What was most important to you and what were you going for?

L. SMITH: Yes, so, when I first started writing it, I thought about me as an 18-year-old girl and when I was getting involved in politics. And there was no guidebook for me. Really, the only thing that I could kind, sort of, look to was the documentary about the 1992 Clinton campaign, “The War Room”. And it is an amazing documentary for anyone who has ever seen it or not seen it. But the only woman that you see in there is Gennifer Flowers. And so, I wanted to write a book that featured, you know, a woman, like me, who I’m very conscious of — was — have been very lucky to reach the upper echelons of public politics. But I don’t have a lot of female peers in that sense. So, I wanted to write this book for the 18-year-old girl, maybe 18- year-old boy looking to get involved in politics to, sort of, demystify the process for them.

MARTIN: Well, you know, you really mix it up. I mean, that’s one of the things that you’ve been known for as a — I don’t know how you feel about the term, political operative. But as a — how do you feel about it?

L. SMITH: I’m good. That’s how I describe myself.

MARTIN: You’re good.

L. SMITH: I mean, yes, I know it’s a loaded term but I’m fine with it.

MARTIN: It’s loaded. But you’re known for being willing to mix it up. I mean, that’s a fact. I mean, you’re one of the people — an early adopter of Twitter as a campaign tool, you’re known for that. You’re known for being a rapid-response person. I mean, you write about this the way that social media has even, sort of, amped up the nastiness. So, can you just talk a little bit about that, like, how do you feel about that, you know, part of your profile and what that’s like?

L. SMITH: Yes, well — look, it’s an important part of campaigns. And it’s an important part of campaigns really to get into this back and forth. It’s a little bit different in New York versus Ohio. In Ohio, you don’t have the tabloids. You don’t have the same sort of brass knuckles approach. But sometimes, yes, you got a mix it up in politics because politics matters. And all of these campaigns matter. Politics touches every part of our lives. Whether we like to admit it or not. So, people hire me because they want to win. And — but it’s not all nastiness, right? And in my book, I do talk a lot – – about a lot of great moments and beautiful moments on the campaign. A lot of my time with Pete was about guiding this once in a generation talent who did not engage in brass knuckle politics and who did, sort of, appeal to people’s better angels. And I talk about how I learned from him that, yes, while it is important sometimes to get in the mud with your opponents, that you can also win by not demonizing people. And by trying to, you know, offering a very kind and inclusive message to people.

MARTIN: You’re talking about Pete Buttigieg, of course, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, kind of an improbable success as a political candidate. And you talk about the former governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, a very different personality.

L. SMITH: Yes.

MARTIN: But also, somebody who you also said, kind of, approached politics with the sense of love for people and a sense of joy, and fun that you greatly admired. But you know, the subtitle of your book is, “A Political Love Story”. And one of the things that you’re very honest about and candid about is that you got personally involved with a couple of the people that you worked with. First was, you know, your college professor who later got into politics and you all were together. And then you got involved with Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, who left office in disgrace after it was revealed that he had been — how would I say, engaging sex workers even as he had this kind of hard-charging reputation as, kind of, a moralist in politics and he was trying to make a cut. And you got involved with him in this kind of — it would seem like it was a very bruising experience. Not the relationship itself necessarily, but the fallout from it. How do you sort of process that? Do you feel like that’s the human story, that’s the truth, just put it out there?

L. SMITH: Yes, well, I wanted to put it out there because it taught me a lot about, one, how women are treated in politics. And two, how women are treated in the media. Because, you know, one of the most tragic elements of that relationship — my relationship with Eliot was that it led to me getting fired by the incoming mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio. And I wasn’t fired because I was bad at my job. I wasn’t fired because I made any, you know, mistakes. I was fired simply because of who I was dating. Now, and we would see two years later, he would fire another female staffer because of someone that she was dating. I don’t know if he could get away with that in today’s atmosphere, but it was incredibly unfair and incredibly sexist. And it was, you know, something that I could — didn’t, frankly, do Bill — Mayor de Blasio any favors because it showed the New York Press Corps, especially “The New York Post” that they could, sort of, push him around and, you know, force how he makes his personnel decisions. So, I thought that it was important to show women that we are sometimes held to unfair double standards. And I also do talk about the way I was talked about in the media. You know, people — I was called every misogynistic term under the sun. There are comments about my wardrobe, my appearance that I’m not even going to, you know, don’t even — I’m not even going to dignify here. And I want people to see the reality of that as well. Because we all know that if a man were in the same situation, they would never be talked about and that same way. And so, yes, I want people to get involved. I want young women to get involved in this process. But I don’t want them to be naive about the nature of this world. And for all the time I have spent in politics, you would’ve thought that I would’ve been more prepared emotionally, professionally, for all of this — for the fall out of all this. And I wasn’t. And I’m very candid about the fact that it led me to struggle with anxiety. It led me to struggle with insomnia. And it was really, really hard dealing with the public pressure of it because, yes, I advise people on the media. But I am a behind-the-scenes person. And for me, being — going from being behind the story, the person shaping the story to actually being the story was very difficult for me.

MARTIN: Do you — I mean, I guess there are two questions that arise from this. Is this a particular issue for women on the Democratic side? Women on the progressive side of politics. Can they expect to be targeted by the political right? Is that, like, thing one? And thing two, given that, why would anybody do it?

L. SMITH: Yes, and I wrote another instance how I was targeted by a right- wing blogger in Missouri, and it’s unpleasant. But again, I would — I didn’t set out to write some sanitized memoir because guess what, you know, life isn’t all puppies and rainbows. And if I went out and said that to people, it wouldn’t be the truth. But that’s — the end of my story wasn’t being a victim of the tabloids. And I talk about how, you know, for years, that did, sort of, define my own sense of self, right. And my own identity, and my view of politics. But that — it changed when I worked for Pete. That he brought back my belief in myself, and my belief in politics because he ran such a beautiful, beautiful campaign.

MARTIN: You’re right. I mean, as a person in the media, you write some things about the media that are frankly uncomfortable to read because they are true. You write about how the coverage is so often consumed by gaps, as opposed to substance.

L. SMITH: Right.

MARTIN: I think that people who, perhaps, are not familiar with this will be interested to hear the degree to which, there’s — frankly a lot of — I don’t know how you would describe it. Manipulation back and forth going on between these, sort of, media organizations and political candidates in their campaigns. What would actually serve the public better from your vantage point as a person who, you know, wants to see ideas and — certain ideas elevated?

L. SMITH: One thing I don’t really have the time to do in my book is to go through how local news is dying. For instance, like, one candidate I’m helping out is Tim Ryan in Ohio. And — he’s from Youngstown. And there is no longer a Youngstown daily paper. And that’s frankly insane to me because who’s going to hold local elected officials accountable? Who’s going to inform voters about their choices in upcoming elections? No one. And so, it — they’re just going to get their news from the national news, and I don’t think that serves anyone. But one dynamic I do talk about, in terms of presidential campaign coverage, is that as sort of a cost-saving mechanism, a lot of the, you know, bigger news outlets, the major T.V. networks, “The New York Times”, “Washington Post”, “Wall Street Journal”, AP, that they have switched to a model where they have — what we call embeds with campaigns. And they’re very often, you know, fresh out of college young reporters who are very talented and very ambitious. But you know, they don’t really have the tools, the professional tools to really deal with seasoned campaign professionals. And so, they are, sort of, reduced to the role of stenographers. And I talk about that with — that dynamic with the Romney campaign. Which is that they would just go out there every day and transcribe Romney’s remarks, file them, and that’s the extent of the story. Rather than, sort of, delving into what were the things that Mitt Romney said true or not? Are they backed up by anything in his record? Well, let’s look at his business record or let’s look at his record as Massachusetts Governor. None of that stuff was coming from the embed. So, I don’t — I’m not — I don’t think it’s going to happen, but there is some value, and I think there would be great value for news organizations to have more seasoned people covering the presidential campaigns. To have people who can’t just be pushed around by the people who work on the campaigns, and who aren’t captive to them for stories.

MARTIN: You described how you feel in a way that these young reporters become, like, subjected to Stockholm syndrome.

L. SMITH: Yes.

MARTIN: Because the campaign operatives, basically, live to push them around. And I have to ask you whether is there any way in which you contributed to that?

L. SMITH: No. No. Actually, no. Actually, no, very different things. I’m known for being someone who can push back. But I would say that — and one thing I write about in the book is my relationship with the media. I am someone who is known, I think, for having a very, very, very good and trusted relationship with the media. And that’s why, you know, on Pete’s campaign, I — it really came through. And we ran the most media-accessible campaign, you know, anyone in 20 years, you know. John McCain had “The Straight Talk Express”. And we tried to model that. We had a bus tour that we did multiple times in both Iowa and New Hampshire that was all on the record. And that was all while the other Democratic presidential candidates were sort of limiting their access to press. And limiting the amount that their candidate interacted with the press. So, what I talk about in my book is that, yes, you push back with them. But, no, you have to — it’s really, really important to have a trusting relationship with the media. And I don’t understand, frankly, the people in my business who seem to hate the media. Like, I don’t even understand why you would choose to do this. And if you don’t work with reporters, and if reporters don’t work with people like me, it doesn’t help the media. It doesn’t help the campaigns. And it sure as heck doesn’t help the American people.

MARTIN: The bigger portrait that you are drawing here is that real substantive discussions, in your view, are being lost. I think a lot of people agree with you. Is it possible to put the genie back in the bottle, if the genie was ever in the bottle? Is it possible to elevate the tone of our public discourse?

L. SMITH: I would hope so. But it does, sometimes, feel like we are in a never-ending race to the bottom. And I — you see this when people who go to Washington. Elise Stefanik is a great example, right? She went to Washington to be an independent type of Republican. To be a new voice, to represent young women in the Republican Party. And then after a couple of years in Washington, she just becomes like every other Trumpist, where she’s posting the most hyperbolic stuff online. Calling her opponents groomers and things like that. And pandering to the worst elements of the Republican Party. So, on the political side, there is — the sort of, this incentive to become, you know, the worst of the worst because that’s what gets you coverage.

MARTIN: Well, I mean, on your side though, I mean, you’ve talked about the fact, you, famously, were part of Andrew Cuomo, the former governor’s kitchen cabinet. Is there any way in which your kind of loyalty to him blinded you to his deficiencies?

L. SMITH: Oh, absolutely. And that’s — it’s a really important lesson I think for people in politics, which is that oftentimes, we think of loyalty as this just unvarnished virtue, and we conflate loyalty with integrity. And I certainly did that in this case. You know, Andrew Cuomo was someone I had worked for, consulted for briefly in 2018, kept in touch with him during the 2020 race. And ironically, he was the first person to tell me to write a book, and I’m sure he’s now regretting that decision. But he was someone who I loved. He was someone that I trusted. He was someone who was a mentor, and sort of a father figure for me. I write in the book about how when I was advising him, and before, that was when my father’s health was declining and right before he passed away. And so, you know, he — Andrew was definitely a father figure to me. But — so, I trusted him every step of the way. It never even — it never occurred to me that someone who I was — who I trusted, would look me in the eyes and lie. And so, I wanted people to learn from the experience and understand that there is a difference between blind loyalty, which I exhibited in this case, and earned loyalty. And that loyalty has to be a two-way street. It can’t just be people like me, or the other people who are advising Andrew Cuomo going out there and putting ourselves on the line for him. He’s got to be loyal to us, too. And there are so many people who had — who lost their jobs, lost their livelihoods, because of the things that Andrew Cuomo did. And I don’t think he lost a minute of sleep over them.

MARTIN: Before I let you go, are you — now that you’ve got it all out there and you see it all in print, you know, the good, the bad, the ugly, like, how do you feel?

L. SMITH: I’ve been really, really hardened that a lot of people that I don’t know have reached out to me over social media. A lot of those 18- year-old girls to tell me how much they loved my book, how much they learned from it, and how they want to get involved in politics. Even after reading the good, the bad, the ugly. So, it goes to show that, you know, anything is possible.

MARTIN: Lis Smith, thank you so much for talking to us.

L. SMITH: Great. Thank you for having me.