It may not come as a surprise to anyone that Jim Bognet is what some would refer to as a “Swamp Rat”. This information seems to be public enough. However, if you weren’t aware let me lay it out for you. Bognet says he is from Pennsylvania but has spent the past 10 years living and working in the D.C. Swamp. He very recently moved back to Pennsylvania to run in the 8th Congressional district primary. However, his most recently listed address is in California’s Manhattan Beach according to WhitePages.com
Bognet has spent many years working and campaigning for Republicans who don’t care too much for President Trump. This includes former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT). Romney specifically, was the one Republican Senator (no Republican House Reps voted to impeach) that voted to impeach President Trump. Over a phone call with the Ukrainian President that Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and other radical top Democrats fumed about. Recently President Trump shared a tweet reaffirming his stance on the “Loser!” Mitt Romney which can be seen below:
LOSER! pic.twitter.com/p5imhMJqS1
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2020
In a campaign video, Bognet calls out the incumbent Matt Cartwright and the Democrats for their efforts to impeach President Trump, but has Bognet called out his former boss Mitt Romney for siding with the Democrats on the exact same “whistleblower witch hunt”? It doesn’t appear so. In fact, on his own campaign website, he posted a snippet of a Washington Examiner fluff piece touting his run for Congress because of, in part, impeachment.
In the same article though, it touts his Romney affiliation, just weeks before Mitt stabbed Trump in the back. It was clear even then, that Mitt was considering an impeachment vote against Trump and should be the last thing any Republican then, or now, would want to be affiliated with. Nevertheless, Bognet seems out of touch on this correlation, at the very best, or at the worst, doesn’t really care about the impeachment witch hunt’s devastating effects on our Democracy and simply is using it for a campaign tailwind. It’s tough to know for sure, but in politics, optics are everything. Part of the excerpt posted to the campaign page reads:
Pennsylvanian James Bognet had been around local and presidential politics for a long time before landing a dream job as a senior vice president at the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
“I was really honored to get a chance to work in the Trump administration,” said Bognet, 44, a veteran of several campaigns, including those for former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
In 2016 it was announced that Jim joined The Glover Park Group as the firm’s Senior Vice President. In the press release, it stated Jim would be handling the Strategic Communications practice as well as providing strategic and media counsel for clients. The Glover Park Group was founded in 2001 by former White House and Democratic campaign officials Carter Eskew, Michael Feldman, Joe Lockhart, and Chip Smith.
The firm offers services of lobbying, public relations, advertising, marketing, government relations, and policy counsel. A few other notable employees include Dee Dee Myers Former White House Press Secretary for Bill Clinton and Howard Wolfson, who served as a counselor to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. An interesting lineup he joined to work politically.
The primary race for 8th district of PA is drawing closer, Jim Bognet is one of 6 running for the nomination to beat out incumbent Democrat Matt Cartwright, who voted for Impeachment of President Trump. The other candidates in the primary are Mikel Cammisa, “Pro-Trump” Teddy Daniels, Harry Haas, Mike Marsicano, and Earl Granville “former” Independent.
Media Right News has previously covered Earl Granville in a story exposing his switch from Independent to Republican, and his apparent disdain for President Trump. We reported in part:
Granville has been the center of some political controversy in the past, in addition to his support for the McCain family, known for their contempt for President Trump. In 2017, a picture of the candidate was altered and used to sell shirts that read “I don’t Kneel” under an American flag. The original picture was of Granville in a Spartan race t-shirt. The controversy was reported on by boston.com.
An advisor for one of the campaigns threw out a welcome to Bognet coming back to Pennsylvania by staying, “we welcome Mr. Bognet back to northeast Pennsylvania and congratulate him on tapping his DC network of fellow Mitt Romney alumni to fund his campaign.”
Reviewing Bognet’s associations and job rolls shows he feels very comfortable working with the ‘swamp creatures’ of D.C. Many candidates or elected Republicans seem to in politics for the wrong reasons these days. They play to whatever narrative is popular at the time, oftentimes forgetting about the foundational values that truly matter to hardline conservative voters.
Teddy Daniels, one of the other Republican candidates, on the other hand, seems to understand these values and more, that he likely picked from his time as a combat veteran, retired police officer, and entrepreneur. He is running on Trumpian tenacity which can be seen in some recent videos that have gone viral on his campaign Facebook page.
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