In 2016, the year of the outsider in politics, congressional candidate Jason Allen prefers to tell voters that he is an Eagle Scout and a duck hunter rather than mention that he has 25 years of experience in government.

He is the incognito candidate.

In press releases, Allen, who is seeking the open 1st Congressional District seat based in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, tells voters about his wife and kids and what colleges he attended, but he ignores his 12 years in the state Legislature.

A Traverse City Republican,  Allen is routinely cited in political circles as “former state senator …” But in his official biography on his campaign website, he says that he is: vice president of a clothing store owned by his family; a member of the Central United Methodist Church; a member of the Michigan Whitetails hunters; and a “life” member of the NRA.

Then, in the closing sentences of the bio he briefly mentions his membership in the Legislature. Allen never discloses that his time spent as a politician also included eight years on the Grand Traverse County Board of Commissioners.

After he served four years in the House and eight years in the Senate, Allen was term-limited in 2010. So, he ran for Congress that year and lost by a razor-thin margin. Newly elected Gov. Rick Snyder came to the rescue by appointing Allen, a Michigan National Guard veteran, as the senior deputy director of the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

At some point Allen’s title changed to senior adviser but he kept the job on the state payroll for five years until last January, when he announced his intentions to run for Congress again.

Allen also does not reference his wife’s career in government. Suzanne Miller Allen is a longtime GOP power broker in the Legislature, serving as chief of staff to past speakers of the House and a Senate majority leader.

And the candidate certainly does not mention Snyder, an establishment Republican with horrible approval ratings — and a political friendship with Allen. In the months leading up to the veteran’s affairs appointment which Snyder awarded him, Allen had served as a co-chair of the Snyder transition team. Somewhere in that time frame, Allen’s Senate chief of staff was named as a director of appointments to the Snyder administration.

Just don’t tell anybody.

The incognito candidate instead portrays himself as an anti-government outsider with “real-world experience,” a conservative who likes guns and hates taxes. Just one of the guys. And he would also like to inform voters that he doesn’t just hunt ducks and deer. You should know that he’s also a member of the Ruffed Grouse Society.