John Brabender | |
|---|---|
| Born | Erie, Pennsylvania |
| Education | Cathedral Preparatory School, Gannon University Cleveland State University |
| Occupation(s) | political consultant, professor, |
John Brabender is a political consultant who mostly advises Republicans but, has also advised Democratic candidates including Democrat Tom Knox, who ran for Philadelphia mayor. [1] He earned a degree in from Gannon University and an MBA from Cleveland State University. [2]
Brabender has been dubbed 'political guru' [3] to Rick Santorum's political career. Bradender worked five of Santorum's Pennsylvania congressional races, starting with his first House bid in 1990 and ending with his failed Senate re-election campaign in 2006. [3]
Bradbender acted as Rick Santorum's senior strategist for his failed 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination bid. [3] He is godfather to one of Santorum's seven children. [3]
Brabender is the managing partner and Chief Creative Officer of BrabenderCox, a national political consulting and advertising firm. [2] He has served as a campaign and advertising consultant for campaigns including Tom Coburn, David Vitter, Rick Santorum, Linda Lingle, Tom Corbett, and for the 2008 Giuliani presidential campaign. [4] He has also worked for the Pittsburgh Steelers in their attempt to gain public funding for Heinz Field in the mid-1990s and for the Pittsburgh Penguins. [5]
He has appeared as a guest on The Today Show, CBS Evening News , NBC Nightly News , CNN's Inside Politics , Politically Incorrect , Talk of the Nation , and CNN. [2]
He was an adjunct professor at the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism at West Virginia University, teaching courses on advertising and the media. [2]
He was named one of the "Rising Stars of 1996" by Campaigns & Elections, after winning 18 of 21 races in the 1994 election cycle, including the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania where Rick Santorum upset Harris Wofford. [6] He helped "mastermind" Tom Ridge's gubernatorial victories in 1994 and 1998. [7]
He was named to the 2002 and 2003 PoliticsPA "Sy Snyder's Power 50" of influential people in Pennsylvania politics. [8] [9] He was named to the PoliticsPA list of "Republican Dream Team" political consultants. [10] In 2010, he was named one of the "Top 10 Republicans" in Pennsylvania by Politics Magazine, where he was called "the go-to consultant for many [Pennsylvania] statewide candidates." [7]
In 2009, he launched Zolitics, a "political entertainment network" with other political consultants, including Leslie Gromis-Baker. [11] [12]
During the 2016 presidential election, in response to an onslaught of celebrity PSAs favoring the Democratic Party's candidate, the most blatant of which was titled "Save the Day", he produced a "Save the Day Response" video mocking the perceived self-importance of celebrities making political statements.
In a 2019 Wall Street Journal op-ed, he predicted Joe Biden would not be elected president. [13]