Today’s Mitchell Family Organ brings the sad news of Karen Kerin’s passing. Kerin was the notorious perpetual candidate for Attorney General — as a Republican and, later, as a Libertarian. She was last seen racking up 2.7% of the vote on the Lib ticket in 2010.

I never met her, and I doubt I’d agree with any of her ideas. But she led one hell of an interesting, and decidedly bumpy, life:

Born Charles P. Kerin Jr., Feb. 3, 1944, in Barre, Vt., the oldest child of Charles P. Kerin Sr. and Ellen (Douglass) Kerin.

Charles grew up as an Army brat and lived in Munich, Germany, as well as Virginia and Massachusetts, graduating high school at 16 years old from Hingham High School. Married to Regina Stone in June 1963, they had six children and divorced in 1989. Charles changed his name to Karen Ann Kerin and married Mary Aschenberg in November 1996.

More from the bio posted on her (still extant) 2010 campaign website:

Karen is a survivor of many medical calamities starting at age two with an appendix removal. Karen, as the result of a very uncommon cancer, endured the removal of her left lung and virtually all of her urinary and reproductive organs, sparing only her kidneys. Medically that is pretty much what transsexuals seek, but for Karen, it was simply a matter of survival.

The media can not understand that a transsexual Karen is not a wild eyed radical seeking to gain from government as is true of so many minority groups.

So, for ten years there has been a drumbeat by media to portray Karen as something other than who she is – specifically, a fiscally conservative, pro-liberty supporter of the law as created by the nation and state founders.

Again, not much common ground between her and the GMD community. But she was one of a kind, for sure. My best to her wife Mary and surviving kin.