Democratic communications wizard Lis Smith has seen more than her share of crises—and from every conceivable angle. Best known as the fast-talking, wisecracking, supremely media-savvy senior advisor who helped elevate Pete Buttigieg to their party’s upper echelon in the 2020 presidential race, Smith cut her teeth in national politics fending off incoming and putting out fires as director of rapid response on Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. The next year, she worked for Eliot Spitzer during his attempted comeback after the prostitution scandal that drove him from the New York governor’s office; her subsequent romantic relationship with Spitzer exploded into a tabloid scandal all its own a few months later, costing Smith the job of running the City Hall press shop for incoming Mayor Bill de Blasio. Later still, she worked for Andrew Cuomo as he tried (and failed) to navigate the sexual-harassment scandal that drove him from the governor’s office.