Mankato paper on Quist, Hagedorn: ‘Thumbs down’

Allen Quist, Jim Hagedorn

Two of Rep. Tim Walz’s GOP challengers got a dressing down by an in-district paper Friday just as they’re ramping their campaigns up: The Mankato Free Press gave the duo a “thumbs down” — for the negative “tone” of their campaigns.

The paper’s editorial board called out two stories first reported by the Minnesota Independent: The scrubbing of offensive blog posts by candidate Jim Hagedorn, and candidate Allen Quist’s videotaped comments that defeating “radicals” like Walz and Barack Obama is a bigger “battle” than terrorism (he says his words were taken out of context).

The editorial read, in part:

In a recent speech that can be seen on YouTube, Republican Allen Quist said this:

“Terrorism, yes (but) that’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C. … Obama, Pelosi, Walz — they’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They’re destroying our country.”

He also called the health care reform bill the “most evil” legislation he’d seen in his lifetime.

Another Republican candidate in the race, Jim Hagedorn, has a history of blog comments that include an anti-gay rant filled with sexual double entendres and one in which he said he hoped the building was “fumigated” after those attending the Paul Wellstone memorial service had left.

Campaigns are all about debates and occasional rants. But too many candidates have focused on anger-filled demagoguery, name calling and personal attacks.

Voters in the 1st District instead deserve to hear about clear policy and philosophical differences of candidates.

Both candidates are starting to ramp up their campaigns: Quist is hosting a Feb. 1 luncheon/fundraiser and town hall in Rochester with, among others, Rep. Michael Burgess, a physician who was in Minnesota for last fall’s town hall meeting on health care with Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Hagedorn is making terrorism a key issue of his campaign (apparently: he doesn’t seem to have an “Issues” section on his site yet). In his letter to the editor of the Fairmont paper, published Thursday, he — unlike Quist — directly links defeating terrorism to ousting Democrats, stating that “given the way President Obama and liberals like Tim Walz are mismanaging the terrorism issue, defeating al Qaeda may be contingent upon reclaiming political power from the Democrats.”

That same day, Hagedorn announced the release of a “white paper” on terrorism; the press release includes similar charges to those leveled in the letter to the editor. I’ve requested a copy of the white paper, which doesn’t appear to be available on his campaign site, from Hagedorn. Update: Here’s the white paper.

Also running in the First Congressional District race are GOPers Randy Demmer and M. Frank McKinzie.