Doesn't Every Democrat Wish They Had An Opponent Like Minnesota GOP Kook Jim Hagedorn?

Mr. Republican, 2018

MN-01 runs along the entire southern border of the state, from the suburbs west of La Crosse, Wisconsin across the Mississippi River to just a few miles east of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It's a pretty red rural district (R+5) and gave Trump a 53.3-38.4% win over Hillary. The 5-term Democratic incumbent, Tim Walz, is running for governor and the battle will pit ormer Obama administration official Dan Feehan against fringe lunatic Jim Hagedorn, a readymade replacement for Steve King if he's defeated in November.

The NRCC had high hopes that MN-01 would be a Republican pickup opportunity to help balance out expected losses in the rest of the country. They've given up that hope, largely because Hagedorn is such an unattractive candidate. 47,127 Democrats voted in the primary, compared to just 42,150 Republicans. And Hagedorn won-- by a lot.

And it's not like Hagedorn is an unknown quantity to Republican voters. They selected him as their candidate in 2014 and 2016. Tim Walz beat him 122,851 (54.2%) to 103,536 (45.7%) in 2014 and 169,074 (50.3%) to 166,526 (49.6%) in 2016. Back in April, the Washington Examiner dubbed him The worst Republican candidate in America.

He has the political acumen of Rick Saccone and the misogynistic mind of Blake Farenthold, combined with the winning track record of the pre-2016 Chicago Cubs. He is Jim Hagedorn, the worst midterm candidate in America and, more than likely, the reason Republicans will lose Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District along with their majority in the House of Representatives.

As Republicans face a blue wave, they are about to risk a prime pickup opportunity by backing the candidate equivalent of a tacky 2000s-era political email-forward.

...The electorate knows Hagedorn after watching him run for Congress and lose in 2010, 2014, and 2016, which is nearly the political equivalent of the Cubs' 108-year championship drought. The difference is that the Cubs Inspire sympathy. Hagedorn does not.

A prolific conservative blogger while a U.S. Treasury Department employee, his Internet archive is full of the locker room talk that even the recently resigned Blake Farenthold wouldn’t find funny. Ahead of the 2002 midterm elections, Hagedorn called Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) “undeserving bimbos in tennis shoes.” During the confirmation hearings of Harriet Miers in 2005, Hagedorn described her Supreme Court nomination as an effort “to fill the bra of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.” Throughout the 2008 presidential election, Hagedorn complimented the Republican ticket, writing, “On behalf of all red-blooded American men: THANK YOU SENATOR McCAIN, SARAH’S HOT!”

Last week, writing for Think Progress, Josh Israel looked even closer and what the GOP has done to itself in southern Minnesota. Here's a contest that doesn't need Trump's toxicity; they already have their own local brand. Israel points out the lengthy record of sexism, homophobia, racism, religious-intolerance, classism, anti-Native Americanism, ageism, hypocracy, and all-around extremist writings.

Next Thursday, Hagedorn will participate in a Republican unity fundraiser with Vice President Mike Pence. In 2002, Hagedorn talked up Rep. Matt Salmon’s bill to add Ronald Reagan’s face to Mount Rushmore, writing “room exists if we flatten Lincoln’s image.” By embracing the bigotry of Trump, Pence, and Hagedorn, it seems the Republican Party has already done so.