Republican congressional candidate Jim Hagedorn. Image by YouTube

By Aiden Pink September 12, 2018

A Republican congressional candidate and former blogger once wrote that former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman supported the Iraq War because Lieberman is Jewish.

Jim Hagedorn, the Republican nominee in Minnesota’s mostly-rural 1st District, had a history of making incendiary comments on his blog, “Mr. Conservative.” The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a 100-page research book of Hagedorn’s most controversial statements.

““But Liberman’s [sic] passionate suppot [sic] for the war in Iraq and other Bush/Republican anti-terrorism policies pushed the independent Senator to adamantly buck his former party,” Hagedorn wrote in 2008. “Maybe the basic reason for Senator Lieberman’s change of heart is found in the simple slogan that he likely uses to warn of Saudi funded schools that teach Islamic hate. Justly Eradicate Wahhabism or America Risks Another Bombing.” The letters spelling out “Jew or Arab” were bolded in the original post.

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Hagedorn also called the state of Washington’s U.S. senators “undeserving bimbos in tennis shoes,” said that a woman who accused a Republican congressman of sexual assault was “white trash,” pushed conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s birthplace and once referred to a disabled veteran in a wheelchair who supported his opponent as a “half-soldier.”

Hagedorn had previously apologized for some of these comments when he unsuccessfully ran for the same congressional seat in 2014 and 2016. Despite Hagedorn’s known history, the National Republican Campaign Committee endorsed him. NRCC chairman Steve Stivers told the Christian Science Monitor that Hagedorn’s comments were “news to me.” An NRCC spokesperson later told the Daily Beast that Hagedorn’s remarks were “inappropriate.”

Political prognosticators predict a close race between Hagedorn and Democratic challenger Dan Feehan. Incumbent Democratic Rep. Tim Walz is running for governor.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

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