According to the blog’s “about” page, Hagedorn’s “unique style of commentary mixes cutting humor, reflective analysis and hard charging commonsense to promote the brand of conservatism established by America’s Founding Fathers, reintroduced by Senator Barry Goldwater and perfected in modern times by President Ronald Reagan, the author’s hero.”

But some of that cutting humor was cut, sometime after Oct. 16, 2009, according to Google’s cache of the site.

On Nov. 5, 2002, Hagedorn’s nationwide election analysis included a note of optimism for Minnesota, which he assessed was “actually showing signs of rejoining the Republic.” He wrote [Google cache; pdf]:

Until Paul Wellstone’s plane crash, DFL Trotskyites were confident the Senator would soar [emphasis his] to victory over Norm Coleman…

Then he joked about fumigating the arena that hosted Wellstone’s memorial service, after mourners — which he surmised included pedophiles and “tree huggers” — left:

About the memorial service. Was it just me or did it not seem as if someone bailed out the union thugs; tree huggers; abortion rights feminists; peaceniks; citizens for gay animal rights; NAMBLA members and the other Marxist sympathizers who protested at last month’s IMF meetings, and transported them to Wellstone’s memorial in a slew of green busses? Talk about lefties all in one convenient location. Hopefully after the ceremony they fumigated the arena.

He concluded the section with a prediction — a Walter Mondale win in the Senate race that Norm Coleman eventually won: “Goofdale will win, something like 50 – 46 with the independent parties taking the remainder.”

As mentioned earlier, the post also includes an analysis of the 2002 race in South Dakota, in which Hagedorn wrote of voter registration irregularities on Native American reservations:

Voter backlash against the Democrat’s (typical) election-stealing maneuvers will be the margin of victory for Thune. Leave it to liberals to ruin John Wayne’s wisdom of the only good Indian being a dead Indian.

A Nov. 7, 2000 post, also scrubbed, accurately predicted a win by Democratic Senate candidate Mark Dayton, while jabbing fellow Republican Rod Grams: [Google cache; pdf]:

Now, you arrive for work at the Senate and in the first days you do which of the following to solidify your long-term political viability (please choose one):

1. Divorce your wife of 25 years
2. Make a public statement that you are banging your chief-of-staff
3. Remind the Republican establishment and the voters that you are really an arrogant SOB
4. Clean up your act.

If you chose D you are definitely not Republican Senator Rod Grams and could have maybe figured out a way to win reelection. Senator Grams, on the other hand, tried his best to achieve A, B, and C before casting his first vote. Thus, liberal self-financed Mark Dayton, not an attractive candidate, is going to the Senate.

(Ironically, Hagedorn’s own father, former 2nd Congressional District Rep. Tom Hagedorn, was implicated in a sex scandal himself: According to a United Press International story of Dec. 10, 1988, available on Lexis-Nexis, former Washington lobbyist Paula Parkinson told CNN’s Larry King that she’d had sexual relations with six Republicans who’d served in Congress, including the elder Hagedorn. )

The site erasures — first noted by Bluestem Prairie — bring to mind the case of another First District Republican, Gil Gutknecht, whose office tried twice in 2006 to remove references in his Wikipedia bio to a 1995 pledge he’d made to only serve 12 years. He broke that pledge in 2005, but lost the race to Rep. Tim Walz.

Hagedorn has not responded to the Minnesota Independent’s request for comment.

Related:

Walz challenger Hagedorn says Dems are ‘driving us toward European socialism’

CD1 challenger Hagedorn deletes anti-gay blog post

Photos: US Senate Historical Office (Grams), Sherman Group (Sherman)

Three Minnesota politicians — none of them now in office — received political donations from accused Ponzi schemer Sir Allen Stanford or his staff. Stanford’s largest and most recent gift ($2,300) was to Democrat Ashwin Madia, who tried unsuccessfully to succeed retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad last year. Former Sen. Rod Grams got $1,000 from Stanford for his failed 2000 bid for re-election. And another former senator, Norm Coleman, received $1,000 in 2006 from a top Stanford employee, Jay Comeaux, who was then executive director at the Stanford Group Company. (He’s no longer listed at the Web site for the firm, which is now in receivership.)

The breakdown of gifts to Minnesotans — two contributions to Republicans, one to a Democrat — is the inverse of how Stanford and his employees split the $2.4 million they donated to politicians and political action committees since 2000. Two-thirds went to Democratic candidates and causes.

Stanford’s phony investment schemes are said to have left investors $8 billion poorer. Some politicians, including Sen. John Cornyn from Stanford’s home state of Texas, say they’ll make donations to charity or to the Stanford Group receiver in the amounts they received from Stanford.

Stanford — who goes by “Sir” after having been knighted by his adopted country, Antigua —  usually picked winners, but of the three Minnesotans, Coleman is the only one who might hold office in the near future. And that’s only if he wins his court battle to reverse the Minnesota State Canvassing Board’s election recount in favor of his DFL challenger, Al Franken.

In the article, “Minnesota Senate Rivals Dig In for Recount Battle,” reporter Christina Capecchi (who also writes for MinnPost), identifies Noah Rouen only as a 34-year-old who “swore off political talk on a pheasant hunt last weekend.” When he and his buddies heard of the now-legendary (and debunked) 32-ballots-in-a-car-trunk story, Capecchi writes, “They could not help but hatch a conspiracy theory.”

One reason Rouen might be given to such theories about votes favoring Democrat Al Franken is that Democrats accused him of participating in a conspiracy to distribute false campaign materials against Franken last summer. In a complaint — later dismissed — to the state Office of Administrative Hearing, DFL Party chair Brian Melendez named Rouen along with two other individuals and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace as being behind a television ad that made charges against Franken related to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

The complaint says Rouen was a delegate to this year’s Republican National Convention (RNC) and for two years was a staff member for former U.S. Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn. Rouen’s biography at the Web site of his current employer — a St. Paul-based media relations firm called Public Affairs Co., where he is vice president — describes his service to Grams as a staffer and press secretary. Public Affairs Co. rebranded itself as GOP Convention Strategies in a marketing push timed to the RNC.

In an interview with the Minnesota Independent, Rouen said that he worked for Grams’ campaign as well from 1999 to 2000. He said while that level of partisan activity is in his past — he called work for the “Vote Yes Minnesota” referendum campaign his most partisan activity this year — he “makes no bones” about being a Republican or having voted for U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.

Rouen said he gave Capecchi, who found him via a Facebook group called “Looking for Coleman Ballots,” his whole background during a 30-minute interview two days ago. He said he was surprised to be identified only as a pheasant hunter in the Times article, and in fact was somewhat surprised to be included at all, given how the ballots-in-the-trunk story has since “evolved.” (On Minnesota Public Radio today, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie reiterated that the story was false, calling for those who started the rumor to speak up.)

Capecchi did not return phone messages and e-mails from the Minnesota Independent. The New York Times also has not responded to an email.

Rouen’s political background isn’t hard to trace. In 2002, he ran for the Minnesota House of Representatives in District 60A but was defeated by DFLer Margaret Anderson Kelliher, now speaker of the House. That year he also served as spokesman for the Rod Grams Minnesota Victory Club, a political action committee formed to aid candidates in local races. A frequent writer of letters on newspaper opinion pages, Rouen had a letter that ridiculed Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the Democratic vice presidential candidate, published in the Oct. 31 edition of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Rouen is featured at the end of the second half of the Times article, which contains a series of quotes from political officials and commentators that are introduced by this sentence:

As the recount nears, brickbats from the candidates, their surrogates and ordinary voters are coming fast and furious.

After quotes from mainly conservative sources — itself a point of complaint by Media Matters (referenced by MnIndy on Friday) — Capecchi concludes her article with this:

Noah Rouen, 34, and his buddies swore off political talk on a pheasant hunt last weekend, but when they heard that 32 absentee ballots favoring Mr. Franken were not counted until days later, having been locked in a Minneapolis elections office, they could not help but hatch a conspiracy theory.

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Rouen logged onto Facebook and updated his status: “Noah is looking for Coleman ballots in his car.”

A little number crunching turns up a few surprises, like the fact that conservative broadcasting magnate Stanley Hubbard has so far given more to Senator Amy Klobuchar than he has to Norm Coleman. Or that Cargill MacMillan Jr.–heir to the Cargill fortune and roughly seven billion dollars wealthier than you–has given next to nothing: a thousand bucks each to Norm Coleman, John McCain and a Republican Congresswoman from California.

Shed no tears for Coleman–he’s received $24,700 in individual donations from Minnesota’s Forbes-listers, more than any other candidate.

Here’s how each Minnesotan ranked on the Forbes list, how much they’ve been giving, and to whom.

No. 42a, Whitney MacMillan

Cargill heirs Whitney MacMillan and Cargill MacMillan Jr. are tied for the distinction of richest Minnesotan (and 42nd richest American).

Born in 1929, Whitney MacMillan ran Cargill from 1976-1995 and was the last Cargill/MacMillan family member to head the company. Here’s what his political spending looks like:

$6,200 to Norm Coleman
$3,300 to Erik Paulsen
$4,400 to the Republican Party of Minnesota
$4,600 to Brian Davis
$2,000 to Michele Bachmann
$1,000 to John Kline
$250 to Rod Grams

MacMillan also sent $1,000 each to Republican Senators in Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, and New Hampshire.

Total contributions: $25,750

No. 42b, Cargill MacMillan Jr.

Cargill MacMillan Jr. must not get as many party invitations as Whitney. There are just three contributions on record this cycle for the heir who saw his massive wealth double in the last year.

$1,000 to Norm Coleman
$1,000 to John McCain
$1,000 to Mary Bono Mack (R, CA)

Total contributions: $3,000

No. 102, Carl Pohlad

Carl Pohlad once told the Star Tribune: “All I wanted in life was to make a $100 a week and have two suits of clothes–one for summer and one for winter.” Notoriously frugal, Pohlad doesn’t throw much into politics. But he did earn himself the distinction as the only rich person on this list to give a large contribution to Barack Obama. And his donation to the Major League Baseball Commissioner’s office was mostly a contribution to the Democratic party. Of the $273,000 the office has contributed so far in this election cycle, 62% of that green turned blue. Still, he gave up $5,600 to the other side, with a sizable chunk of change going to the Norm Coleman-affiliated Northstar Leadership PAC.

$9,200 to Barack Obama
$5,000 to the Northstar Leadership PAC
$5,000 to MLB Commissioner’s Office
$600 to Norm Coleman

Total contributions: $19,800

No. 105, Richard Schulze

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze is sitting on $3.5 billion dollars and put most of his recent political contributions into the U.S. Senate race. Norm Coleman got $2,600 but Mike Ciresi, a one-time contender for Coleman’s seat, got $2,300.

$2,600 to Norm Coleman
$2,300 Mike Ciresi
$1,100 to the Republican National Committee
$1,000 to Jim Ramstad

Total contributions: $7,000

No. 123, Glen Taylor

So long as you are a Republican, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor is a generous man. If you are the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Taylor is exceedingly generous–$45,000 generous. Here is a man who wants a Republican-controlled Senate and is willing to pay for it.

$45,700 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee
$7,200 to the Republican Party of Minnesota
$4,600 to John McCain
$3,100 to Norm Coleman
$2,000 to Michele Bachmann
$1,000 to Brian Davis
$1,000 to Erik Paulsen
$1,000 to John Kline
$200 to the Republican National Committee

Total contributions: $65,800

No. 163, Mary Janet Cargill

Mary Janet Cargill apparently does not like to get her money mixed up in politics. She contributed to no campaign for national office. She supported no party. Fair enough, with $2.5 billion who needs politicians? Wait.

No. 281a, Barbara Carlson Gage

Locked in a $1.7 billion three-way tie for least-rich richest Minnesotans (the 281 slot on Forbes’ list) are Barbara Carlson Gage, Mary Carlson Nelson, and Stanley Hubbard.

When she’s not christening ships, Barbara Carlson Gage is–truth is I don’t know what she’s doing. But here’s who she’s been giving to:

$4,600 to John McCain
$2,600 to Norm Coleman
$2,300 to Rudy Giuliani
$1,000 to Jim Ramstad
$500 to Brack Obama
$500 to Amy Klobuchar

Total contributions: $10,500

No. 281b, Marilyn Carlson Nelson

With just a few exceptions, the Carlson sisters’ money runs red. Here are Carlson Co. CEO Marilyn Carlson Nelson’s contributions for the current election cycle:

$8,110 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee
$6,900 to John McCain
$3,600 to Norm Coleman
$2,300 to Rudy Guiliani
$2,300 to Mike Ciresi
$360 to Elizabeth Dole

Total contributions: $21,270

No. 281c, Stanley S. Hubbard

Conservative broadcasting magnate Stanley Hubbard seems to be having the most fun of the bunch. He’s given overwhelmingly to the Republican cause, with a few notable exceptions. He gave $5,000 to Norm Coleman but $5,100 to staunch Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who isn’t even facing re-election. He gave $2,300 to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney (before backing McCain) but he gave the same contribution to one-time Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson of New Mexico, where Hubbard owns four NBC affiliates.

$19,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee
$10,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee
$10,000 to the Republican Campaign Committee of New Mexico
$4,600 to Michele Bachmann
$6,600 to Erik Paulsen
$6,600 to Dick Day
$5,100 to Amy Klobuchar
$5,000 to Norm Coleman
$5,000 to the Freedom & Security PAC
$5,000 to the National Association of Broadcasters
$5,000 to Northstar Leadership PAC
$5,000 to the Great Plains Leadership Fund
$4,600 to John McCain
$4,600 to John Kline
$2,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
$3,300 to Rudy Giuliani
$2,300 to Mitt Romney
$2,300 to Bill Richardson
$2,300 to Mike Ciresi
$1,300 to Pete Domenici
$1,000 to John Thune (R, SD)
$1,000 to Bob Schaffer (R, CO)
$1,000 to Terri Bonoff
$500 to Vito Fossella (R, NY)
$200 to the Republican Central Committee of South Dakota

Total contributions: $113,800

For more: Read “The Crunch,” Paul Demko’s ongoing multi-part series on Minnesota’s top-100 political contributors.