Jim Hagedorn (bio here), 59, a Republican functionary from Minnesota who was finally elected to Congress in 2018 after several previous failed attempts, died of either liver cancer or Covid-19 (he had both) on Thursday, February 17, 2022 (see story here).
Hagedorn was a loyal Trumper; he voted against impeachment and certifying Biden’s election, and his “voting record in Congress reliably reflected Trump’s positions.”
But Hagedorn was chiefly known for a blog he ran from 2002 to 2008 characterized by racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks, prompting the rightwing Washington Examiner newspaper to call him “the worst midterm candidate in America” in 2018.
His blogging was especially virulently anti-Native American and homophobic, but he also was demeaning toward women:
“In one 2005 post, Hagedorn wrote that President George W. Bush had selected a female Supreme Court nominee to ‘fill the bra of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.’ Another post described Washington state’s two senators, Patty Murray (D) and Maria Cantwell (D), as ‘undeserving bimbos in tennis shoes.’
“In 2008, Hagedorn thanked Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin ― whom he called ‘the feisty Caribou Barbie’ ― as his running mate. ‘On behalf of all red-blooded American men,’ Hagedorn wrote, ‘THANK YOU SENATOR McCAIN, SARAH’S HOT!’”
Will anyone miss this toadstool? Maybe his wife — a scandal-ridden, ousted former GOP state chair, sordid details here — will. They had no children, which may be just as well. And his father, a four-term GOP congressman defeated in 1982, who’s still alive.
My condolences to his relatives. The rest of America probably won’t miss him very much.