{"id":1609664,"date":"2022-08-17T05:04:20","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T09:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1609664"},"modified":"2022-08-17T05:04:24","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T09:04:24","slug":"tim-ryan-celebrates-endorsement-from-republican-who-worked-for-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tim-ryan-celebrates-endorsement-from-republican-who-worked-for-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Ryan Celebrates Endorsement From Republican Who Worked for Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftim-ryan-celebrates-endorsement-from-republican-who-worked-for-obama%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1609664&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/democrats\/\">Democrats<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">John Bridgeland worked on Obama White House council, cheered Biden victory<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\"><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tJohn Bridgeland \/ Getty Images\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/joseph-simonson\/\" title=\"Posts by Joseph Simonson\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Joseph Simonson<\/a> \u2022 August 17, 2022 4:59 am<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>On the campaign trail, Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio) touts the endorsement of a man named John Bridgeland as evidence of his cross-party appeal.<\/p>\n<p>There are just a few details the congressman leaves out, at least when he&#8217;s trying to win over voters in his increasingly red state: Bridgeland worked in the Obama administration, celebrated President Joe Biden&#8217;s election, and cofounded a nonprofit dedicated to remaking policing.<\/p>\n<p>The founder of &#8220;Republicans for Tim Ryan,&#8221; Bridgeland has worked on left-wing policy initiatives for years. Former president Barack Obama in 2010 appointed Bridgeland to the White House Council for Community Solutions. Bridgeland also cofounded a firm, COVID Collaborative, that works with the Biden administration on vaccine messaging. In December 2020, Bridgeland wrote an op-ed for the website of Maria Shriver, a Democratic activist and member of the Kennedy family, about how he was &#8220;so encouraged&#8221; by Biden&#8217;s win.<\/p>\n<p><span>Democrats touting endorsements from nominal Republicans who routinely attack the Republican Party is a familiar strategy. <\/span>Lawmakers who have been rubber stamps for Biden&#8217;s agenda, such as Ryan, are hoping that voters forget their records. Sen.\u00a0<span>Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), who is running in a competitive race this cycle, recently released a list of endorsements from Republicans, several of whom work for the the Lincoln Project, an activist group dedicated to electing Democrats but helmed by individuals who once considered themselves Republicans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Bridgeland&#8217;s endorsement comes as Ryan seeks to separate himself from the president. Biden&#8217;s approval rating is 23 points underwater in Ohio\u2014a state that former president Donald Trump won twice. When Biden traveled to Ohio for a speech last month, Ryan scheduled campaign stops hundreds of miles away.<\/p>\n<p><span>Ryan shared Bridgeland&#8217;s endorsement on Twitter and wrote he was &#8220;proud&#8221; to have Bridgeland on his &#8220;team.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Republicans for Ryan is a platform for Republicans to sign up to help Tim Ryan. I am a registered Republican and vote in Republican primaries and in general elections,&#8221; Bridgeland told the\u00a0<em>Free Beacon<\/em>. &#8220;I believe in limited, effective government, \u2026 civil society and the nonprofit and private sectors, and respecting both individual rights and responsibilities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span>Bridgeland worked from the mid-1990s to 2003 as a senior official in then-representative Rob Portman&#8217;s (R., Ohio) office and in former president George W. Bush&#8217;s administration. In an op-ed for a local Ohio newspaper, Bridgeland wrote that he supports Ryan&#8217;s &#8220;love of our democracy&#8221; and &#8220;many of his policies.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Bridgeland attacked Ryan&#8217;s Republican Senate challenger, J.D. Vance, as &#8220;lacking the energy of the U.S. senator he is trying to replace\u2014Rob Portman.&#8221; Portman endorsed Vance immediately after Vance in May won the Republican nomination.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Bridgeland&#8217;s endorsement of Ryan was leaked to <\/span><i><span>Politico<\/span><\/i><span> days prior as part of a story about the Ryan campaign&#8217;s strategy of appealing to Republican voters. That story also featured Bridgeland speaking favorably about Ryan and how Ryan could make inroads with Republican voters in Ohio. Missing from <\/span><i><span>Politico<\/span><\/i><span>\u2018<\/span><span>s story was any mention of Bridgeland&#8217;s work since he left the Bush administration in 2003.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Ryan did not respond to a request for comment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Other than Bridgeland, no appointees with experience in Republican politics were appointed to Obama&#8217;s White House community solutions council. There, Bridgeland worked alongside the likes of Laurene Powell Jobs and Jon Bon Jovi to provide advice to the president on &#8220;innovative community solutions and civic participation by all Americans.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Bridgeland later cofounded ACT NOW, a nonprofit that works &#8220;to reimagine \u2018public safety&#8217; \u2026 and eliminate the root causes of systemic racism.&#8221; ACT NOW&#8217;s staff includes Ray C. Kelly, who in 2018 received an award from George Soros&#8217;s Open Society Institute-Baltimore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>According to internal voter data obtained by the <\/span><i><span>Free Beacon<\/span><\/i><span>, Bridgeland voted in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. A June column he wrote for the <\/span><i><span>Cincinnati Enquirer <\/span><\/i><span>called for new gun control measures. The column also touted his work with a group called the People&#8217;s Filibuster for Gun Safety. That group, according to its website, partners with left-wing nonprofits such as the Anti-Defamation League and March for Our Lives to pass gun-control legislation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Bridgeland&#8217;s cheerleading for Biden appears out of step with Republican voters. Following Biden&#8217;s State of the Union address in March, Bridgeland celebrated the speech as passionate and &#8220;articulating values and ideas that transcend our divisions.&#8221; <\/span><span>A <\/span><span>Reuters <\/span><span>poll released Aug. 9 found 86 percent of self-identified Republicans disapprove of Biden.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Ryan will face Vance in November. There is little high-quality polling of the race available, although most political analysts believe Vance is the favorite. Portman&#8217;s seat has been held by a Republican since 1999.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democrats John Bridgeland worked on Obama White House council, cheered Biden victory  John Bridgeland \/ Getty Images  Joseph Simonson \u2022 August 17, 2022 4:59 am<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1609664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1609664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1609664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1609664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1609664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}