https://danfeehan.com/about/
About page for GOP candidate Jim Hagedorn:
http://www.jimhagedorn.org/about
From those pages, quoting, first: Hagedorn's effort at saying who he has been and is:
Jim Hagedorn was born in Blue Earth, Minnesota, in 1962, to parents Thomas, a grain and livestock farmer, and Kathleen, a homemaker. Jim’s grandparents, Fred and Viola Mittelstadt and Pete and Elaine Hagedorn, were all lifelong Blue Earth residents.
In 1963 the family moved from Blue Earth to their 160 acre grain and hog farm located just outside the small town of Truman.
Jim’s formative years were spent on the Truman farm. His father and grandfather were full-time farmers and, as partners, regularly worked 1,000 acres or more. Jim helped work the land, walk the bean fields, feed the hogs, maintain the property, and developed a firsthand understanding of farming and the business side of agriculture.
[...] It was during the “Truman years” that Jim was taught, by his parents, about God and the salvation of Jesus Christ. The family regularly worshiped at Truman’s St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, and Jim attended his church’s parochial grade school. (Jim remains a weekly worshiper and is a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church, LCMS, in Blue Earth)
Truman was also where Jim participated in numerous sporting activities, including Little League baseball, golf, fishing, snowmobiling, and was also a Cub Scout. At age 6, during a family fishing trip to Lake of the Woods (Baudette, Minnesota), Jim caught a 13lb. 6 oz. northern pike off the dock, with no bait, and won “fisherman of the week.”
In 1974, Jim’s father was elected to Congress to represent southern Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District. Shortly thereafter the family began splitting time between Washington, D.C. and Minnesota – spending the school year in the Virginia suburbs of DC and returning each summer to the Truman farm.
[...] Throughout Thomas Hagedorn’s congressional career, Jim learned about national politics firsthand and interacted with notable politicians and famous leaders, including Jack Kemp, Henry Hyde and Ronald Reagan, who, along with his father, are Jim’s political heroes. [...]
In 1984, Jim was hired as the legislative assistant to former Minnesota Republican Congressman Arlan Stangeland. Jim handled an array of issues and successfully managed the Congressman’s legislative agenda, including stewardship of H.R. 916, a 1987-88 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.
Jim utilized his position as the agency’s congressional liaison to orchestrate the enactment of several bills to reform government. The highlight of his legislative success was the 1995-96 enactment of H.R. 1698, the “Mandatory Electronic Funds Transfer Act of 1995,” a measure that Mr. Hagedorn devised to require the use of electronic funds transfer/Direct Deposit (rather than expensive paper checks) to disburse hundreds of millions of federal payments. [...]
In 2005 Jim thwarted a Bush administration policy to merge the nation’s coin and currency agencies, an idea that would have cost taxpayers $500 million for no added value, and transferred power from career civil servants to partisan political appointees. At great risk to his career, Jim crafted an appropriations provision and worked with the Congress and interested parties, including unions, to prohibit the use of federal funds to merge the Bureau of Engraving and Printing into the United States Mint. This spending prohibition remains in force today and for this accomplishment Jim enjoys support from both management and organized labor.
In 2014, Jim won a hotly contested Republican primary election, and then went on to receive 45.7 percent of the vote against incumbent Democrat congressman Tim Walz in the November general election. Jim won six counties and amassed the highest percentage vote against Walz since his election to congress in 2006.
Jim announced his candidacy for the 2016 election on May 12, 2015. Jim received the endorsement of Minnesota’s First District Republican Party on May 7, 2016, and handily won the August 9th Republican primary election, 76.5% - 23.5%.
Jim came up just short of defeating incumbent Democrat Tim Walz and pulling off the biggest congressional upset of the November 8, 2016, general election. Hagedorn won the overwhelming majority of southern Minnesota’s precincts and carried 13 of the First District’s 21 counties, six by 60% or more of the vote. The 50.3% - 49.6% result (Walz 169,071 – Hagedorn 166,524) was the 12th closest congressional election in Minnesota’s history.
In a December 2016 speech to the Minnesota Republican Party’s State Central Committee Hagedorn announced his commitment to running for a third consecutive election cycle. Hagedorn’s back-to-back-to-back campaigns follow successful similar efforts undertaken by former Minnesota Congressman John Kline, current Minnesota Congressman Collin Peterson and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich.
Talking about oneself in the first vs. third person is a distinction without a difference, the Feehan website about page stating:
I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and grew up in Red Wing as a constituent of the Minnesota 1st Congressional District. From an early age, I was inspired by the public service of my parents and the election of the late Paul Wellstone, and I knew that I wanted to follow their example and serve my community. I was given that chance after September 11, 2001, when I witnessed the day’s terrorist attacks firsthand as a college student in Washington, D.C.
I committed myself to military service in the coming months, signing up for Army ROTC so I could do my part to protect the nation’s security. From 2005 through 2009, I served as an active duty soldier and completed two combat tours of duty as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In Iraq, I searched for roadside bombs and pursued those threatening Americans and Iraqis alike, earning the Bronze Star for Service, the Army Commendation Medal with Valor, and the Ranger Tab.
Even as my military duty was ending, I knew that my dedication to service was only beginning a new chapter. I felt a new calling to serve children at home as a teacher in high needs communities. On the week I left the Army in 2009, I began teaching first graders on Chicago’s south side, followed by two years spent as a middle school math teacher in Gary, Indiana. My experience as a soldier and teacher taught me the enormous impact public policy has on the lives of everyday people, and I became determined to use that wisdom as a policymaker.
For the third time, I asked to serve, moving to Washington, D.C. after graduate school to join the Obama administration, first as a White House Fellow and then as an acting Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. In that position, I worked tirelessly to ensure that our millions of service members were ready to fight, and that they had the tools to lead a quality life as veterans after their service was over. I worked closely and continually with Congress to make sure new policies and laws made sense and had the best impact possible.
After finishing my service with President Obama, I moved back to Minnesota, the place I have always called home, [...]
Today, the issues facing the 1st District are complex and challenging. I want to make sure that no citizens of southern Minnesota are left behind in an evolving economy—rather, that they are offered opportunity through affordable post-secondary education and the development of new job sectors. I want to make sure they’re provided a high quality of life through investments made in infrastructure and affordable, universal health care, and that the most vulnerable among us are cared for in a way that lives up to the compassion of this country. I want to make sure our farmers are supported, that they continue to be our nation’s best, and that they can find new markets for their crops throughout the world.
In foreign and defense policy, I will lead an effort to bring new Congressional oversight to our unending war on terrorism, while ensuring our service members are only sent into harm’s way with a clear mission and when it’s absolutely necessary. What’s more, I will work to help our veterans find empowering opportunities after their military service has concluded.
Our southern Minnesotan communities are at their strongest when we know we all belong, when we serve each other, and when we create opportunities for everyone to thrive. And our country is at its strongest when America can be counted on to lead by example. It is critical that our Members of Congress embody that spirit of leadership, and I plan to do just that as the 1st District’s representative, a responsibility I would consider the honor of a lifetime.
Each talks of Minnesota roots and each has served in administrative positions in DC, while Feehan drops fewer names in describing himself. Hagedorn's bio page is about who he's been, while Feehan's page says much of what he envisions. However, each has an issues page, again in alphabetical order:
https://danfeehan.com/issues/
http://www.jimhagedorn.org/issues
Those pages show much difference in outlook and priorities; where the candidates differentiate themselves most starkly.
Not being in that district attuned to moods and views, only a guess at which candidate might win is possible here, and guessing that way would be a disservice to readers who can read candidate pages, especially so for any Crabgrass readers in the First District.
Clearly if living there and voting, Feehan would be the personal choice I would make. Much of what Hagedorn presents as issues and how he presents his viewpoint and concerns fails to resonate with me. Again, I live and vote elsewhere.
BOTTOM LINE: Dan Feehan, very shortly, a contribution check for the campaign will be in the mail.
UPDATE: That said, neither is the tool that Erik Paulsen is, the tool that Jason Lewis is, and for that residents of CD1 can be thankful.