When Pete Buttigieg, the little-known mayor of South Bend, Indiana, announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, he stunned the political world with his meteoric rise in the polls.  Buttigieg was everywhere in the news and on television, thanks to a savvy campaign team that included political operative Lis Smith, who boasted, “I want him on everything.”  In a month, he had raised 7 million dollars, a significant sum for a political nobody starting from scratch in a national campaign.… Continue Reading