The Brad Pitt of the Republican Party?

One of our favorite candidates this year is Stewart Mills, who is running for Congress in Minnesota’s 8th District–northern Minnesota–against a weak one-term incumbent, Rick Nolan. We helped launch Stewart’s campaign by promoting his YouTube video in which he argues for 2nd Amendment rights and defends the dreaded “assault rifle.” When we get around to posting this year’s Power Line Pick Six–soon, I hope–Mills will be one of our choices.

The 8th District race is starting to get national attention, and Politico has taken note. But, Politico being Politico, it seems mostly interested in Stewart’s hair, titling its article, “The Brad Pitt of the Republican Party.”

He has been anointed the Brad Pitt of the Republican Party. And on a recent day on the trail, rookie congressional candidate Stewart Mills was struggling to fine-tune his message on an issue of critical importance to his campaign: his hair.

Mills, with his jaw-length blond locks and muscular physique, has been compared to the heartthrob movie star by everyone from a national party official to adoring teenage girls. And if it seems a little trivial and objectifying — he is, after all, running in one of the more closely watched, competitive House races in the country — Mills doesn’t mind.

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There is, in my view, no comparison between Stewart Mills and Brad Pitt: Stewart is a mainstream conservative, a successful businessman who has helped make Mills Fleet Farm a household name in the Midwest, something of a health care expert, and a staunch gun rights advocate. His wife is better looking than Pitt’s, too.

Mills is a lifelong outdoorsman but a newcomer to politics. Successful in business, he has declared a net worth between $50 and $150 million. He may have a “muscular physique,” as Politico says, but he is a likable, gentle man who, if I am not mistaken, is shorter than I am. (Next time I see him he will probably demand a measurement.) Mills says that he is not a traditional politician, and it is true. The hair is the least of it: the Democrats have done opposition research on him, and have found Facebook pictures where he is not only drinking beer, but wearing a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt. Seriously, this is the best they can do. Stewart pleads guilty to drinking beer, which probably won’t hurt him in the 8th, and offers extenuating circumstances as to the Packers sweatshirt. Some might say he is too nice a guy for a career in politics.

Stewart likes to say that he got involved in politics because of his family’s “hunting camp rules.” One of the rules was, if you complain about something, you have to fix it. That is the theme of his first campaign ad:

Stewart Mills is a good conservative and a good man. To learn more about him and to support his campaign–which I believe he will win, if we conservatives get behind him–go here.

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