Dem House Nominee Paige Cognetti Uses Husband's ‘Upscale’ Food

Paige Cognetti wants Pennsylvania voters to believe she’s fighting for the little guy. Her new ad blames corporations for price gouging groceries. But the camera doesn’t show what happens at her own family’s store. Her husband runs an upscale Scranton food shop that reviewers call "expensive" and "upscale." It doesn’t accept food stamps. That’s not illegal. It’s a choice.

The ad is a performance, not a policy. Anyone can rail against grocery prices while standing in a kitchen stocked by a gourmet market. Cognetti is asking working families to trust her on the cost of feeding a household, while her own household is insulated from that squeeze. It’s hard to lecture voters about expensive milk when your family sells artisan olive oil.

This is the Democrats’ recurring problem. They run on economic populism, then get caught living like the people their donors actually serve. If Cognetti wants to be the champion of Scranton’s "little guys," she could start by taking food stamps at her husband’s store. Or she could admit that her outrage over grocery prices comes from a comfortable distance.

Little guys notice when you don’t shop like one. We’ll see if the Eighth District does.