Cuomo and Spitzer ‘lost touch with why they were in government in the first place,’ says Democratic strategist
Democratic political strategist Lis Smith joins Yahoo News’ “Skullduggery” podcast to discuss her career and new book, “Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story.” Smith, who previously advised former New York Govs. Eliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo — both of whom resigned amid scandal — tells Yahoo News that “there was a belief in New York politics for a while that to succeed you had to be sort of the hard charger, that you had to be sort of a bully.” She added that Spitzer and Cuomo “are people who ended up leaving office with many more enemies than they had friends.”
Video Transcript
- In reading your book, one thing that leapt out at me was the various candidates you have worked for, been involved with, John Edwards, Eliott Spitzer, Andrew Cuomo. They all have in common in one thing, they've all had problems with women. , So look if I were your therapist, which I'm not, I would ask you two questions. Number one, is there a pattern here? And the second question is, does this explain how you ended up advising the first openly gay presidential candidate?
- That is a good one I love it. I love it. Well, OK. Let's be very clear about one thing. With John Edwards, I was on the 2004 campaign. And I was a volunteer intern. I was in a student group for him at Dartmouth College.
So I was not exactly a senior advisor to him. With Elliott and full disclosure, like later on ended up being my boyfriend. And Andrew, I think that was more an issue of what was seen as putting the woman stuff aside which is a big thing to put aside is that they're both very strong personalities.
And I think there was a belief in New York politics for a while that to succeed, you had to sort of be this hard charger, that you had to be sort of a bully. And I think that was a big part of both of their downfalls which is that they in addition to very different scandals that they both had to deal with, there were people who ended up leaving office with many more enemies than they had friends.
And that they were people who, frankly, over time, I think really lost touch with why they were in government in the first place, and treated their colleagues like dirt. And so when they got in trouble there was no one Lift to stand up for them.