He makes us sick, too, Lis!
El’s gal calls out of work after sexposé De Blasio not sweatin’ affair— for now
IT LOOKS like Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio isn’t ready to commit to his glamorous communications chief — revealed Sunday night to be Eliot Spitzer’s latest squeeze.
A terse de Blasio on Monday refused to say when he learned Lis Smith, 31, his top spokeswoman, was Spitzer’s new gal pal, insisting it was a “private” matter.
Smith, who typically attends every press conference with her boss, was a no-show at the noon session where de Blasio announced key appointments to his administration.
And when pressed for his reaction to Smith’s relationship with the politically toxic ex-governor, the mayor-elect wouldn’t say if he would keep her on the payroll after he’s sworn in Jan 1.
He did offer words of praise about the svelte PR maven’s job performance.
“I respect Lis as a professional,” said de Blasio. “But I also respect her right to privacy, so I’m not going to get any further into it.”
De Blasio got testy at the suggestion that news of Smith’s dalliance with Spitzer — whose city controller campaign she worked for this summer — might be a distraction for his transition.
“I think I’m getting my message out just fine,” he said sarcastically.
Smith, a seasoned Democratic mouthpiece, is working for de Blasio’s transition team and seemed poised to take over as press secretary for the mayor’s office.
But de Blasio, who has yet to pick a schools chancellor and took five weeks to decide whether to move his family to Gracie Mansion, apparently hasn’t made his mind up about Smith.
“This to me is like any other personnel question,” said de Blasio. “When the time comes, we’ll have an announcement.”
His campaign manager, Bill Hyers, didn’t hesitate to back up Smith on Twitter. “@Lis_Smith is a great professional and good friend. I couldn’t be happier I recruited her to @deBlasioNYC campaign. She helps Democrats win!” he wrote.
Smith later tweeted back: “@HyersBill xoxo.”
Sources said that Smith may be seriously smitten with the hooker-happy Spitzer.
The balding, 54-year-old politician and the Ivy League-educated stunner had a strictly professional relationship during Spitzer’s campaign, said Hari Sevugan, who also worked for Spitzer at the time.
“She had a reputation for being tough and aggressive in the most challenging environment,” said Sevugan, a former Democratic National Committee press secretary. “I knew her to be tenacious and tough and smart.”
Smith had dated disgraced ex-Missouri state Sen. Jeff Smith be- fore he was imprisoned in 2009 for obstructing a Federal Election Commission investigation into his 2004 campaign for Congress.
In his blog The Recovering Politician, Jeff Smith described the up-and-coming Democratic operative as a high-strung communications pro “whose jet-black hair, pale skin, haute couture dress, and staccato delivery screamed New York City.”
It’s unclear when Spitzer and Lis Smith began hooking up, but after Spitzer lost the election in September, Smith stuck around in the city — possibly because of her links to the former Love Gov.