Respectfully submitted for your perusal: a press release from one Jim Hagedorn. Origin: a 25-year resident of Washington DC, but lately of Blue Earth, Minnesota. Motives? Therein hangs the
tale, but for just a moment we're going to ask you to shake hands,
figuratively, with yet another candidate hoping to serve the Tea Party Republican base in Southern Minnesota.
This is the Teabagger Zone.
HAGEDORN ANNOUNCES BID FOR CONGRESS
“The people of Southern Minnesota are worth fighting for,” says Hagedorn to Walz
Blue Earth resident Jim Hagedorn today announced his candidacy for U.S. Congress in Minnesota’s First Congressional District. Hagedorn will be seeking Republican endorsement to challenge second-term Democrat Tim Walz.
“The greatness of America is under assault by the liberal politicians who run Washington, D.C.,” said Hagedorn. “The big government agenda of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Tim Walz is in direct conflict with our free enterprise system and the enduring principles of liberty, individual opportunity, personal responsibility and traditional cultural values.”
“Washington, D.C. is out of control,” Hagedorn continued. “Our leaders are spending borrowed money faster than it can be printed, taxing and regulating producers into submission, plotting the takeover of whole sectors of our economy and driving us toward European socialism.” “Tim Walz claims to be a thoughtful moderate, but his complete embrace of the Obama-Pelosi agenda has exposed Tim Walz as a thoughtless liberal,” said Hagedorn.
“I left Capitol Hill and returned to help the people I love the most because this country is worth defending, our way of life is worth saving and the people of Southern Minnesota are worth fighting for,” Hagedorn stated.
A native of Blue Earth, Jim worked with his dad and grandfather on the family’s grain and hog farm located just outside Truman. In 1974, Jim’s father, Tom, was elected to Congress to represent Southern Minnesota, which he served until 1983. “Living on the farm and being part of our rural communities ingrained in me the small town values that have sustained me throughout life,” Hagedorn said.
Hagedorn graduated from George Mason University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Government and Politics and served as the legislative assistant to former Congressman Arlan Stangeland. Hagedorn successfully managed the Congressman’s legislative agenda, including stewardship of a bipartisan “workfare” bill that required able-bodied welfare recipients to work for benefits. This bill was conceptually enacted into law shortly after Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in 1994.
From 1991 to 1998, Jim served as the Director for Legislative and Public Affairs for the Financial Management Service, the U.S. Department of the Treasury agency responsible for the management of more than $2 trillion in federal funds. Hagedorn utilized his position as the agency’s congressional liaison to enact the “Mandatory Electronic Funds Transfer Act of 1995,” a measure that saves taxpayers more than $100 million each year by requiring the use of electronic funds transfer/direct deposit rather than expensive paper checks to disburse hundreds of millions of federal payments.
Hagedorn also served as Congressional Affairs Officer for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Department of the Treasury agency that manufactures U.S. paper currency. In 2005, bringing together members of Congress, interested parties and unions, Hagedorn worked to thwart a Bush administration policy to merge the nation’s coin and currency agencies. Hagedorn’s efforts helped save taxpayers upwards of $200 million.
“After my father was elected to represent Southern Minnesota in Congress, I enjoyed a successful career on Capitol Hill. Over the years I learned a lot about how government works, but learned even more about how it doesn’t work. I used my Capitol Hill experience and legislative expertise to pass meaningful government reform legislation and do right by the taxpayers. Throughout it all, I stayed true to my conservative principles,” Hagedorn said.
Hagedorn cites his congressional priorities as implementing Reagan/JFK economic policies to help small business create jobs; slashing federal spending through top-to-bottom reviews of all federal agencies, beginning with the Pentagon; limiting government by returning power to the states; restructuring foreign entanglements and defunding “nation building;” and defending the American way of life and traditional culture.
Currently, Hagedorn is employed as Director of Government Relations and Corporate Development for Electromed, Inc., a Minnesota-based company that manufactures devices to help patients with breathing disorders and circulatory ailments.
More information about Hagedorn can be found at the Hagedorn for Congress website at www.hagedornforcongress.com.
The recollections of one Jim Hagedorn, with appropriate flashbacks and soliloquy. Or more simply stated, the evolution of a congressional race, the election cycle of going from dust-ups to defeat, the metamorphosis from being a government bureaucrat to an ingredient in the Republican base's teacup. It's today's "bill of fare," from the Teabaggers' Zone.
Update December 3: Paul Schmelzer broke the story yesterday about Hagedorn scrubbing his blog, "Mr. Conservative," of offensive comments. A must read. Hagedorn told an MPR interviewer that his sense of humor is one of his assets for the race. That being the case, why scrub the material, rather than pass it off as "humor."
The Political Party blog at the Rochester Post Bulletin has more.
So, a consummate Washington Insider and son of a Washington Insider, with a quarter-century of experience under his belt now has come, ahem, home pretending to be an "outsider" just so he can go back to DC again on the taxpayer's dime?
Why do I have the feeling that we won't be seeing him at supermarkets meeting with constituents every week like Tim Walz? I suspect Hagedorn prefers hanging with his industry friends at Ray's the Steaks in DC to listening to the concerns of constituents at the Channel One Food Bank in Rochester.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Dec 02, 2009 at 01:51 PM
Any idea when the last time he lived in Minnesota ?
His bio states : Jim Hagedorn’s Education
George Mason University
BA , Government and Politics , 1980 — 1993
Not only is that a long time to get just a BA, but it implies that he has lived in the DC area since 1980 ?
Considering his comments about "farm values", it makes me wonder why he has not returned earlier ?
Posted by: Minnesota Central | Dec 02, 2009 at 06:41 PM