John Brabender

John Brabender is a prominent Republican political consultant. He earned a degree in from Gannon University and an MBA from Cleveland State University.[1]

Brabender has been dubbed 'political guru'[2] 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.[2]

Bradbender acted as Rick Santorum's senior strategist for his failed 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination bid.[2] He is godfather to one of Santorum's seven children.[2]

Brabender is the managing partner and Chief Creative Officer of BrabenderCox, a national political consulting and advertising firm.[1] He has served as a campaign and advertising consultant for campaigns in nearly every state, including Tom Coburn, David Vitter, Rick Santorum, Linda Lingle, Tom Corbett, and for the 2008 Giuliani presidential campaign.[3] 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.[4]

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.[1]

He was an adjunct professor at the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism at West Virginia University, teaching courses on advertising and the media.[1]

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.[5] He helped "mastermind" Tom Ridge's gubernatorial victories in 1994 and 1998.[6]

He was named to the 2002 and 2003 PoliticsPA "Sy Snyder's Power 50" of influential people in Pennsylvania politics.[7][8] He was named to the PoliticsPA list of "Republican Dream Team" political consultants.[9] 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."[6]

In 2009, he launched Zolitics, a "political entertainment network" with other political consultants, including Leslie Gromis-Baker.[10]

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.