STEVE SEBELIUS: Big Dan’s big plan: Congress or bust
BOSTON — Jan. 4, 2028: A surprise candidate joined the crowded race for the 7th Congressional District on Tuesday, one whose colorful history includes stints in World Wrestling Entertainment and previous runs for office in five other states.
Daniel Rodimer, formerly known by his nom de wrestling, “Big Dan,” is now casting himself as a conservative Democrat in the mold of John F. Kennedy after previous runs as a Republican in Nevada, Texas, Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina all came to naught.
Rodimer’s critics have seized on a new ad, in which he speaks in a thick Boston accent while playing touch football with his family in front of a rented seaside estate and sailing a chartered yacht off Cape Cod with a sweater tied around his neck. Other candidates say he’s a carpetbagger, and not for the first time.
“Here in Massachusetts, we’re free! We live free! But the politicians in Washington want to shut down our way of life, close our churches and replace our creamy clam chowder with tomato-based Manhattan chowder,” a spray-tanned Rodimer says in the ad.
He added: “I moved my family back to Massachusetts because I want to live in a constitutional-friendly state, and what could be more constitutional-friendly than the state where the Constitution was signed?”
The Constitution was signed in Philadelphia.
Rodimer’s post-wrestling political career began in Nevada, where he lost a legislative primary in 2018 but defeated a motley GOP primary lineup for the 3rd Congressional District in 2020. He lost that race.
Undaunted, Rodimer moved to Texas, where he ran in a special election to replace a congressman who died in office. (The crowded field included the congressman’s widow.)
That race featured an ad with a body double standing in for Rodimer riding a bull, cutting away to him wearing cowboy boots and a hat, claiming in a Southern accent that freedom-hating commies wanted to shut down the Texas way of life.
After his loss, Rodimer ran in Louisiana’s 23rd District, walking Bourbon Street with a Cajun accent, accusing Democrats of tossing stimulus money like beads at Mardi Gras. He won the GOP primary but lost the general to a former at-large New Orleans councilwoman who died two weeks before Election Day.
From there, it was off to Florida, where his primary campaign collapsed in scandal after a Rodimer body double was killed while wrestling an alligator.
Two years later, Rodimer’s bid for the 2nd District in South Carolina went horribly awry during a televised debate in which he mistook the region’s famous mustard-based barbecue sauce for the vinegar-based sauce preferred in North Carolina. The booing of the live audience brought the debate — and Rodimer’s bid — to an early close, and he lost the general election in a landslide. His campaign office was reportedly vandalized with gallons of vinegar-based barbecue sauce.
But now, Rodimer — whose Southern accent has vanished in favor of a South Boston brogue — has embraced what he obviously thinks of as Camelot mystique.
“The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans,” Rodimer said in an interview outside a government office in Quincy, where he’d mistakenly gone to file his nomination papers. “Here in Massachusetts, we’ve always known that God’s work must truly be our own.”
Asked about a Fodor’s Guide to the Maine coast that a reporter spotted on the front seat of his car, Rodimer muttered something about a family vacation. He denied plans to file for office in that state in two years, after the incumbent Maine’s 1st District announced Monday she was not planning to run again in 2030.
Contact Steve Sebelius at SSebelius@reviewjournal.com. Follow @SteveSebelius on Twitter.