Axelrod told Buttigieg about Smith, and O’Malley told Smith about this young mayor from South Bend. She figured that Buttigieg’s sexuality and impossible-to-pronounce last name rendered him dead on arrival, but started researching the 35-year-old Indiana mayor and promptly fell down an eight-hour Google rabbithole. 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....
“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. “There is nothing too big for her. She doesn’t give a fuck. She is the most competitive person I have ever known.”...
“Politics has a bias toward the status quo,” she says. “People get stuck in a rut because something worked last cycle, and so they think it will work this cycle and it doesn’t. You have to know the social media ecosystem, how people are sharing and consuming their news. It’s why in one day we do CBS Sunday Morning, The View, Teen Vogue and the New Yorker. It’s about hustling for opportunities. Pete has no battle scars.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/29/lis-smith-buttigieg-2020-president-campaign-manager-226756
Reader Discretion Advised: Politics ain't beanbag and Smith knows it.