Bulwark Takes - Holy Smokes! THIS Is How You Do an Ad

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Tim Miller throws a lot of praise to Paige Gebhardt Cognetti on her new campaign ad, throwing some serious punches to Rob Bresnahan.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everybody, Tim Miller from the Bullwark here. We are getting into Politician ad season for the mid-term. and I saw one this morning that really caught my eye. I want to break it down for you. I think this is a good model for Democrats for a variety of reasons. And so I want to highlight it, you want to encourage good behavior. This is Paige Cognetti. She's running for Congress in Northeastern Pennsylvania running against a guy named Rob Bresdenhan. So it's a highly competitive district, really important race for the Democrats if they want to take back the house. She's

the mayor of Scranton. I want to go through her ad because she's like she's doing a lot of things that we've been begging for around here at the bulwark. So we're going to watch it together. I'm going to point out what she's doing and why I think this is good positioning for a Democrat going against the MAGA Republicans right now. So let's watch. Northeastern Pennsylvania, NEPA for those who love it. Our folk heroes are the workers. People here work hard and we stand tall. Our new congressman, almost a bit short.

Rob was handed the keys to a family fortune at 19. Workers here built that company. Rob sold it to foreign private equity. All right. So I like the short dig at the start. All right, she's nagging him. I don't even think Rob Resanan is short. So I think that makes the joke funnier for me.

But what she leads with here is, I think, a populist appeal that is not, like, coded in some of these academic languages like you sometimes hear. I know when I complained a little bit about the grand planter ad, the guy run from Maine Senate, which is a really good ad. But he's using, you know, oligarchy. He's using some of these words that are a little bit, you know, better suited for a classroom. This is just a straight populist appeal.

This dude is a rich kid, okay? He took daddy's money. And instead of investing it back in the community, he took investment money from people overseas. All right. Simple, it's easy to understand. People get it. Nobody likes the Nepo baby, you know,

taking over a business all right this is for the millennials among us you know this the Tommy boy situation all right nobody wants Chris Farley taking over the company and uh and bossing around the people actually doing the real work all right I think that was in Ohio's in Pennsylvania the the the parallel works for me at least okay this is a good start it's two minute ad stick with us we're going to keep going rob ran for Congress on a promised demand stock trades this year he's already made 600 trades 600 sold Chinese stocks the week of of a tariff, buys missile stocks before a war, buys jet stocks before a big contract, oversees crypto, buys crypto stocks before a vote. Said he wouldn't cut Medicaid? Cut Medicaid for over 25,000

of our neighbors. Sold Medicaid provider stocks just before the vote, profiting off of Pennsylvania's loss. So people keep asking Rob, a congressman worth around 50 million with a secret helicopter. I love the secret helicopter bit with the toy helicopter. It's funny. It makes me laugh. But here is, I think sometimes this like banning stock trade attack is a little bit, I don't know, sometimes it feels like a little bit hollow for me or it doesn't actually connect with why people should care about that in a real way. She does this, I think masterfully in this ad, right? She ties in actual things that people care about that affect them to the stock trade hit.

So he's cutting that, he's voting to cut Medicaid. Meanwhile, he's selling a stock for Medicaid providers. Beautifully done. You know, you get into the China issue. You get into crypto, you get into some of these other issues where this guy is trading on stocks. He's making money. We've already established he's a Nepo baby.

He's going to Congress and he cares about making money for himself. He's not caring about bringing the money back to the district. This is a pure populist appeal that is merited. And I think that really is right for the moment. there's a little bit more on this to stop trading stocks and focus on the people raw protests saying what am i going to do just leave it there and lose money and go broke my story it's a little different boom i mean the fact that this dude is out there talking about how he's worried about going broke when he's running for congress from fucking northeast pennsylvania and this isn't a

connecticut district like this isn't a uh and this is he put this on a tea for her so i think she sets the table here very nicely like the ad begins the The first end of the ad is a full frontal assault on her opponent. We live in a time of negative polarization. It is important to define your opponent. She does so masterfully. But the contrast with her campaign and with what she's bringing to the table and what she's offering is why I like this ad so much better than some of the others that we've seen in

this vintage. So let's learn a little bit more about Paige. I met my husband at his small business. We're raising our family here and we're proud to call Nifa home. When our mayor went to prison for corruption, the Democratic machine thought they could put in another crony. So I took on the powerful and corrupt Democrats and ran for mayor as an independent, a simple idea. The government should work as hard as the people it serves. They called it page against the machine.

Okay. I'm getting a little hot and bothered over here. This is what we're talking about. She's doing everything right. She's running against corrupt Democrats, right? So using the phrase corrupt Democrats is really important here. okay because uh maybe some viewers of this you know think democrats do everything well most people don't you just look at the poll numbers right now the democratic party brand is in the shitter

and so what she does here is establish her credibility right this is not a partisan attack i'm not just going after this nepo baby who's lining his own pockets because he's a republican and i'm a democrat and that's the only reason i'm doing it no she's establishing i'm going after anybody that wants to line their pockets at your expense i'm going after corrupt people people of any party. And not only that, I did it. I ran as an independent against the Democratic establishment in Scranton. And you can't, you can't draw up a bio better than this. Like if I, if I created an imaginary bio of a Democrat, this is what I would want. And I swear I think I was talking to JVL about this yesterday. And I was, and, like, what is the path out of this? And like,

the best thing that I can come up with is that the Democrats turn. to somebody who has a credible brand as an outsider reformer who can come in and shake things up because that way then, you know, the long-term reforms that are going to be needed in this country, you know, are positioned not just as like, oh, no, Democrats get back to Republicans and then fucking J.D. Vance or someone, a loser comes back in and he does the same thing, right? Instead of that permanent war, you change the paradigm. And to do, that you need a you need a candidate that um that reflects that in their bio that's whole rationale for running is i'm going to go after corruption no matter where it is that gives them the freedom to go after

the republicans as aggressively and maniacally as they want okay they can do the real swamp draining shit that is going to be needed okay so anyway i'm not so excited about this that i'm nominating Paige Cognetti, Mayor of Scranton for president in 2028, so I'm saying this is the model for the type of Democrats, the Democrats should be recruiting everywhere. It's brilliant, it's beautifully done.

There's more. Let's keep watching. As mayor, we did things differently. We lowered costs. Cleaned out the corruption, manage the finances, off utility companies, built pool parks. This is something that Democrats might be afraid to talk about. You know, she's doing these pocketbook issues stuff,

right? Which is right, which is what you want to do. You know, people care about costs. people care about reforms, and then she just tosses in there, built cool parks. I think this is, these things are understated. A lot of times these fucking ads, like, it just becomes like the Peanuts parents. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Like, a lot of these topics are the same. It's like, they want to come Medicaid.

I don't, like, all those are important issues. The issues that poll well are important issues, but you have to have your own personality. You have to demonstrate that there are things that you care about as an individual as a candidate that you want to bring to the people to make their life better. Like, building cool parks, do we want to build a whole ad campaign around that? Of course not, right? Is that going to be the difference between her winning and not? No, probably not.

But what it does, it's like, hey, if you live in this district and you noticed that there's some cool new parks, some cool new playgrounds around, that you can take your kids or grandkids to, I worked on that. That's just, that's a little something that creates a bond between you and the candidate that is different from, you know, they're going to cut Medicaid. They want to, they're going to cut taxes for the rich. We get that. People should talk about that, too.

But give me a little, give me a little personality. I thought that was good, how they just ducked that right in there. Back to the ad. We got a little bit more. Built nearly a thousand more homes and welcomed new businesses so everyone here has a shot at the American dream. We listened. Rob isn't brave enough to hold a single real town hall.

I've held dozens in Trump country. We built a government for everyone. Rob says Scranton is not what we are. Well, Rob, I say day trading away the public trust is not who we are. So, yeah, I'm running for Congress because people here deserve a lot better than a rich kid disrespecting our hard work and proud legacy. I love that we end that people deserve better than a rich kid disrespecting hard work. It's good. You have to, look, the Democrats are struggling with working people.

It's not going to get fixed with one ad, right? Like, their numbers are going down across all. all demographics with folks that don't have a college degree that have working lower middle class jobs. You have to explicitly explain that you care about them. You have to show that this is something that you're going to prioritize. You have to try. Trying is important in politics. Showing up is important.

I think that if you look back at the campaign 24, I think that there was a sense that there wasn't enough effort there right there was sure there was white papers there was lip service paid to it as honestly they didn't mention issues for working class people um but i you have to kind of combined combine the policy that you're putting forth with a vibe and an energy that says i'm putting you first i care about you the most you know you are my special child um maybe that is infantilizing a little bit but that's just life that's politics you have to you have to brand your yourself explicitly this way. She is doing this and she is doing this not in a way that just appeals to one narrow slights like working class lefties or working class union folks or,

you know, people that are more in the center and, you know, care about working class issues but have different views on cultural issues, right? Like this is, this ad could be for any of those people, right? Like it is broadly appealing. It is showing that she cares about working class issues and working class concerns. She's not doing it a way they can paint her into some corner ideologically or make her seem like she's out of step with some demographic or another.

It is extremely well done. Her bio really helps, right? You can't find in every single district somebody that ran as an independent for mayor against a corrupt democratic establishment. If there are other mayors like that out there, you should go recruit them. But she has,

obviously a unique bio that is going to make this something that really works for her. You can't totally replicate it, but the concept is right here. And I think that what she's doing right there is something that's going to start to slowly move the Democrats back in the right direction. And shout out to Page and to the folks that are working on this campaign. So that's that. We'll keep you posted. People like to ad watch during the 2024 campaign. It feels a little early to be doing ad watch September 2.

you know we got 14 more months so the next election but when i see stuff that really catches my eye good or bad uh we'll do my best to bring it to you all and uh make sure to subscribe to the feed tell us what you think in the comments and we'll be seeing you soon