This is why you're seeing Pete Buttigieg everywhere

(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

published 29 April 2019

Everyone has a Pete Buttigieg story. That's by design.

The 2020 Democrat has received an outsized media following for someone whose political experience is limited to being the mayor of Indiana's fourth largest city. Yet the dozens of stories, TV appearances, and speaking appearances have translated to skyrocketing poll numbers, and it's largely thanks to communications adviser Lis Smith, Politico details in a Monday profile.

As even Politico's David Freedlander admits, Buttigieg has been lining up lunches and jogs for months, hoping to connect with reporters before he launched his presidential campaign in January. Freedlander describes it as "a strategy ... run with surprising sophistication," and found that it all leads back to Smith, a New York-based Democratic operative who's worked on a handful of high-profile campaigns over the years. Her media strategy for Buttigieg? "I want him on everything," she told Politico.

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So far, everything has meant environmental newsletters, Barstool Sports, and possibly a bus, à la John McCain's Straight Talk Express. After all, saturation is what convinced Smith to work with Buttigieg in the first place. David Axelrod, former President Barack Obama's chief strategist, connected Buttigieg and Smith, and she "promptly took an eight-hour fall down a Google rabbit hole" until "she became obsessed with the idea of working for him," Politico writes. Now, Axelrod tells Politico that Smith has certainly been “the quiet hero of [Buttigieg's] emergence.” Read more at Politico.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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