Because Jim Hagedorn stops by the Worthington Globe to chat, the editors are fancying that there's some there there. In Hard-working Hagedorn, they opine:
Walz and Hagedorn may be political opposites, but Hagedorn’s campaign does bear some similarity to the one Walz ran eight years ago when he surprised well-entrenched Republican incumbent Gil Gutknecht. Walz pounded the southwest Minnesota pavement with a tenacity that demonstrated deep interest in his future constituents, and came across as an everyman who didn’t embody the style and manner of a typical politician. . . .
To hear Hagedorn say it Tuesday, disenchantment with Walz and President Obama is widespread across the region, thanks to a litany of failed liberal policies.
Whether Hagedorn is exaggerating such a malaise remains to be seen, but if history is any indication, November may well be tough on Walz and his fellow Democrats — especially if Hagedorn continues to work as hard as he has thus far.
We're not sure if "everyman" is the best term to describe Hagedorn, or if the Worthington Globe editors actually checked history when they wrote that. We have, and see two major differences between 2006 and 2014.
Walz was raising cash, staffing up and generating good will and national attention. Hagedorn is not raising money and while he is gaining national media attention, it much more resembles Gutknecht's own "wiki wiping" headlines at this time eight years ago.
Scrubs: Hagedorn's blog erasure and Gutknecht's wikipedia wiping
Beginning in late August, Hagedorn has been plagued by the re-emergence via an article in Mother Jones of his old racist, sexist and homphobic blog posts. The flack continues: witness the September 6, 2014 Star Tribune coverage Jim Hagedorn faces an uphill battle against Tim Walz, with its tag line: "The GOP candidate pulled off a stunning primary upset, but old blog posts, party infighting have dogged his campaign."
Or the letter in Saturday's Mankato Free Press by Tom Leonhardt of St. Peter, Hagedorn not voice for 1st District:
Jim Hagedorn, who is running against 1st District Congressman Tim Walz, would like to think of people who demand strong characters of their potential elected officials as “politically correct liberals.” That’s a direct quote from Hagedorn’s pathetic attempt at an apology to such groups as women, American Indians, homosexuals and to our president, for his writings he characterizes as satire.
He goes on to say ...”the rather worn and tired Democrat tactic of personal destruction and demonization is designed to deflect attention from the serious problems confronting our nation and the failed big government record of President Barack Obama and devoted liberal followers like incumbent DFL Congressman Tim Walz.”
Is it not an engaged citizen’s duty to know who they are electing to solve the serious problems that are confronting our nation?
Someone who spews this kind of hatred has no business, in my opinion, holding public office, let alone attempting to solve the nation’s serious problems.
The following is just a handful of quotes from Hagedorn’s “satire”:
Hagedorn referred to Washington Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray as “undeserving bimbos in tennis shoes.”
Former Bush White House counsel Harriet Miers, he wrote in 2005, had been nominated “to fill the bra of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.”
He referred to Nevada as a land of “nuclear waste and thankless Indians.”
This is not the voice of anyone fit to lead the 1st District of Minnesota.
If anything, Hagedorn's online woes recall the situation Gutknecht found himself in when a diligent 17-year-old homeschooled student in Missouri discovered as Eric Black notes in Gutknecht tries to edit history:
Esteemed colleague Kevin Diaz has a piece in today’s Strib revealing that someone on Rep. Gil Gutknecht’s staff repeatedly tried to change the wikipedia article on the congressman to delete the fact that when first seeking his seat 12 years ago he had promised to term-limit himself to six terms. (Coincidentally, Gutknecht is now seeking a seventh term.)
Here’s the funniest paragraph.
“A spokesman for Gutknecht did not dispute that his office tried to change his Wikipedia entry. But he called into question the reliability of the service, which was created in 2001 and claims to be the largest reference website on the Internet.”
Translation: I don’t deny that you found me with my hand in your safe, but I really think you should have a better lock on that thing.
There's no doubt Hagedorn works hard, at scrubbing his website and campaigning. But by this time in September 2006, Walz had staffed up and the race was on, as Bluestem's archives reveal.
This year? Not so much.
Fundraising in the 2006 race
Perhaps the most important benchmark for comparing the 2006 and 2014challengers' campaigns is money and the field effort it supports.
Since Minnesota had not yet moved its primary from September to August, we can't compare 2006 and 2014 pre-primary reports, only the July quarterly reports for the two challengers. Here's the summary report of the July Quarterly report for Walz in 2006:
5. Covering Period 04/01/2006 Through 06/30/2006
| Column A This Period |
Column B Election Cycle-To-Date |
|
| 6. Net Contributions (other than loans) | ||
| (a) Total Contributions (other than loans) | 202291.05 | 447451.58 |
| (b) Total Contribution Refunds | 0.00 | 50.00 |
| (c) Net Contributions (6(a) - 6(b)) | 202291.05 | 447401.58 |
| 7. Net Operating Expenditures | ||
| (a) Total Operating Expenditures | 73913.99 | 194825.84 |
| (b) Total Offsets to Operating Expenditures | 0.00 | 253.61 |
| (c) Net Operating Expenditures | 73913.99 | 194572.23 |
| 8. Cash on Hand at Close of Reporting Period | 252829.35 | |
| 9. Debts and Obligations Owed TO the Committee | 0.00 | |
| Itemize all on SCHEDULE C or SCHEDULE D | ||
| 10. Debts and Obligations Owed BY the Committee | 0.00 | |
| Itemize all on SCHEDULE C or SCHEDULE D | ||
And here's the 2014 July quarterly report for Hagedorn:
5. Covering Period 04/01/2014 Through 06/30/2014
| Column A This Period |
Column B Election Cycle-To-Date |
|
| 6. Net Contributions (other than loans) | ||
| (a) Total Contributions (other than loans) | 30035.00 | 74960.00 |
| (b) Total Contribution Refunds | 0.00 | 50.00 |
| (c) Net Contributions (6(a) - 6(b)) | 30035.00 | 74910.00 |
| 7. Net Operating Expenditures | ||
| (a) Total Operating Expenditures | 22491.09 | 68015.65 |
| (b) Total Offsets to Operating Expenditures | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| (c) Net Operating Expenditures | 22491.09 | 68015.65 |
| 8. Cash on Hand at Close of Reporting Period | 11894.35 | |
| 9. Debts and Obligations Owed TO the Committee | 0.00 | |
| Itemize all on SCHEDULE C or SCHEDULE D | ||
| 10. Debts and Obligations Owed BY the Committee | 0.00 | |
| Itemize all on SCHEDULE C or SCHEDULE D | ||
In the equivalent period, Walz took in (in 2006 dollars) nine times what Hagedorn did in the same three months in 2014, and had by that time in the cycle raised l five times over what Hagedorn has. Moreover, in 2006 Walz nearly matched Gutknecht for the quarter, as the six-term congressman took in $203,343.04 to Walz's $202,291.05.
Moreover, the gap in COH in hand was much tighter in 2006 as well. While Gutknecht had $826,391.82 in the bank at the end of June 2006, Walz had $252,829.35, a less than 4-to-1 difference. At the end of June 2014, Hagedorn had $11,894.35, while Walz had $541,913.61. Do the math--and consider the difference in staffing.
If one looks at the most recent pre-primary reports, Walz took in $28,540.00, and closed with $522,766.43, while Hagedorn took in $10,840.00--$2000.00 of which came from the candidate--and ended the period with $9,104.31.
Hagedorn's upset over Miller came in a race in which neither candidate raised much money. Hagedorn's detailed summary for the pre-primay reporting period noted that the committee had total receipts of $90,800.00 for the cycle, while Miller took in $45,985.00, of which $40,000 came from the candidate himself. Indeed, of the $341,666.75 raised by the Miller campaign for the cycle to date, $160,000.00 came from the candidate, who repaid himself, shuttling the cash from account to account.
Neither candidate is a 2006 Tim Walz, and neither had attracted the gifted young staff that helped Walz upset Gutknecht. Nor has the current contest brought in the independent spending that began flooding the district as the race heated up.
Photo: Now that we think of it, Gutknecht's wiki-wiping and Hagedorn's blog post deletion are sort of the same category of behavior. Photo via MPR.
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