Scranton, Pa. — Exactly 50 days out from the November election, PA-08 candidate Jim Bognet is still having a hard time convincing voters (and his fellow Republicans) that he is the right man for the job.
National Republicans’ plans to buy this district through millions of dollars in outside spending have been stymied by their “exceptionally bad candidate.”
Even the Congressional Leadership Fund, House Republicans’ top Super PAC, released a memo calling for a “stronger recruit.” Instead of a “stronger recruit,” they got stuck with Jim Bognet — again.
While Bognet portrays himself as the hometown kid in this race, he has spent decades living and working outside PA as a lobbying executive and campaign operative. It is no wonder GOP strategists have openly raised concerns about Bognet’s carpetbagger credentials.
Bognet’s outsider status also did not go unnoticed by his Republican primary opponents, who congratulated him on “tapping his DC network of fellow Mitt Romney alumni to fund his campaign.”
Matt Cartwright campaign press secretary, David Early, issued the following statement:
“At a time of so much political polarization, there is one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on: Jim Bognet is an extremely weak candidate. Working people in northeastern Pennsylvania are struggling, and the last thing they need is a career political insider like Jim Bognet. Bognet thinks he deserves to represent the “hometown” he left behind to work as a lobbying executive, but it’s time he listens to what his fellow Republicans have been saying all along: that he’s not fit for the job.”
