CNN's Randi Kaye looks at Linda McMahon's senatorial campaign. She says she'll spend $50 million to win. Of particular note is that CNN seems to have been inspired by this youtube video, I assume from a CT blogger who shall remain nameless.
1. The Washington Post is showing the love for Linda McMahon this morning, calling her "a remarkably polished and poised first-time candidate."
McMahon...is ready to embrace the serious success of the company and even the aura of scrappiness it lends her. Then with poise and legalese, she distances herself from wrestling scenes that are sexually explicit and purposefully inflammatory, moments her opponents hope to highlight. That trick is made even tougher by McMahon's star turns inside the ring. While her appearances were nowhere near as regular as those of Jesse "The Body" Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota, her groin-kicking alter-ego nevertheless did combat with her own husband, son and daughter. Watching her recite well-coached corporate talking points to reconcile the two can be a spectacle in its own right.
The Post goes on to lead us through her "well-coached corporate talking points" without questioning their validity. Great journalism, Post!
2. Rob Simmons is not a happy camper. First he was dissed by Joe Scarborough, who gave both Republican Senate hopeful Linda McMahon and Democratic prospective Senate candidate Dick Blumenthal airtime on his Feb 12th "Morning Joe" show. But according to Simmons, ""We inquired, we inquired, we inquired and we didn't get on."
Simmons is also "concerned" about the neutrality of CT GOP head Chris Healy, given his wife Suzan Bibisi's position with the McMahon campaign. According to McMahon's latest FEC report, Bibisi was paid $6,532 on Nov. 30 and a total of $7,206 in December.
A person who "understands the thinking within the Simmons camp" explained:
Another person who understands the thinking within the Simmons camp used far stronger language.
"While the Simmons campaign has held out hope that Healy would prove to be an honest broker, they have since lost confidence based on what they believe are Healy's actions in support of McMahon's campaign and the fact he has a big financial stake that grows each day McMahon remains in the race," the person said.
Healy, during an interview Sunday, said he is still an honest broker and if it can be proved that he asked a delegate or potential delegate to the Republican convention to back McMahon over Simmons, "then I'll quit. ... That's ridiculous." Healy said it is inappropriate for him to support any one candidate, but he said that recently, at the suggestion of some other party insiders, he did ask Simmons whether he would be open to running for the former congressional seat he lost in 2006.
"When people ask me to think about it and make an offer to discuss it with the Simmons people, I have a responsibility to do that," Healy said, emphasizing he was only the messenger.
I remember Anderson Scooper bringing up this conflict of interest at CTLP when we heard the news about Ms. Biblisi hire by the McMahon campaign. He was immediately piled on by the wingers. Wonder if some of those same wingers are amongst those expressing concern now that their candidate is getting buried in McMahon bucks and Healy asked him to bow out of the Senate race and run for Congress. Just as the messenger. #cough#
3. Did you know that Attorney General Dick Blumenthal is the consummate political outsider? Neither did I, but that's the narrative, apparently.
Richard Blumenthal shrugged off the prospect of an Obama campaign visit as "an open question," and has steered clear of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., whose poor reelection prospects contributed to his decision to retire. "I have been independent of Senator Dodd and everyone else in Washington," Blumenthal, the state attorney general, told Yale University students last week.
UPDATE ctblogger:Today, the Government Administration and Elections committee is holding a public hearing on the Citizens' Election Program. You can watch the proceedings online at the CT-N website.
Make sure to watch the video highlights from the Sunday morning talk shows below the fold.
Public Policy Polling has just released their new numbers for CT-Sen. A stark contrast to what they had been.
When Chris Dodd retired last night his seat went from one of the most vulnerable to one of the safest for Senate Democrats. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal leads all three of the Republicans in the race by at least 30 points in polling we conducted Monday and Tuesday night before Dodd's announcement.
Blumenthal is unusually popular, especially in hyper partisan times when voters like few politicians. 59% have a favorable opinion of him to just 19% who see him negatively. It's no surprise that he's liked by 71% of Democrats and 60% of independents, but even Republicans view him favorably by a 37/35 margin. It doesn't take a lot of hands to count the number of Democratic politicians with positive numbers among GOP voters these days.
Blumenthal leads Rob Simmons 59-28, Linda McMahon 60-28, and Peter Schiff 63-23. It would take an epic collapse for him not to be Connecticut's next Senator.
There's little good news in this just released Quinnipiac poll for Chris Dodd. He's been trending in the high 30's for the last seven months now, while Rob Simmons is back up to near his high.
Of some interest though is that there now seems to a race among the Republicans. Linda McMahon's millions in ad buys have put her on the map, as have to a smaller extent Tom Foley, both at the expense of Rob Simmons.
Counting on your opponent/s to weaken themselves and deplete their resources is not a winning strategy though, as eventually Chris Dodd or someone else will have to win the seat, not expect someone else to lose it.
On the same day that President Obama is scheduled to come to Connecticut to stump for U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, one of his GOP opponents will unleash an ad blitz.
Former wrestling CEO Linda McMahon will return to the airwaves Friday, her campaign confirmed today. Even though the election isn't until November, 2010, McMahon has already run a round of ads.
According to a source, the ad in question will cost McMahon $100,000 for one day to air on New York TV and oddly will only air for 24 hours.
If there's one general rule for all political campaigns, it's to avoid mentions of the word "necrophilia" in association with your candidate.
Sadly, thanks largely to their candidate's highly problematic (and highly entertaining) YouTube trail, the campaign of Linda McMahon could not avoid such a fate.
Late this afternoon, the Connecticut Democratic Party released the above video of some of the WWE's finer moments, set to soothing tunes and the dulcet tones of their former CEO describing the "energetic" family "fun" of the WWE in a recent campaign ad.
Linda McMahon spokesman Ed Patru, former spokesman for Freedom's Watch, had this to say in defense of the WWE product earlier in the day:
"Every American understands the difference between scripted TV entertainment and real life betrayal of trust by Washington politicians," he said. "With 15 million Americans out of work and a jobless rate in Connecticut approaching 10%, people want a Senator who knows how to fix the economy and put people back to work. It's stunning that Chris Dodd's supporters are more concerned with PG TV programming than job creation."
Connecticut Democratic Party Communications Director Colleen Flanagan responded:
"Just because the show is "scripted" doesn't mean it's not vile, tasteless, violent, demeaning to women and fueled by steroids," said Connecticut Democratic Party Communications Director Colleen Flanagan. "What's stunning is that Linda McMahon and her staff are unable to explain or defend her involvement in a company which produces this kind of sexually explicit and violent programming, yet they still believe she'd be a fine U.S. Senator."
It will be interesting to see if the WWE - which as McMahon continues to remind us is a successful publicly traded company - will attempt to cover for their ex-CEO politically by having YouTube take down some of these embarrassing clips, some of which have been allowed to stay up for months with no copyright claim on their part.
Update: Yep, WWE has now had YouTube take down at least thesethreeclips - all of which were viewable earlier in the day today - after they were linked to by the CT Dems in a press release.
The CT Dems found some choice clips from YouTube about the smut wholesome entertainment the McMahons had been peddling. At least until very recently, that is. From a press release put out by CT Dems Colleen Flanagan:
"As WWE Chief Operating Officer, Linda McMahon presided over programming that showed simulated rape, public sex and necrophilia, and now she wants to be our U.S. Senator? People across this state, not to mention the millions of women who are the victims of sexual violence every year, would be horrified and embarrassed to know that the person who seeks to represent them condones this kind of behavior. That kind of programming has no place in our society, and Linda McMahon has no place in the U.S. Senate."
The clips as seen here (simulated rape), here (a public sex scene) and here (a wrestler having sex with a corpse) are decidedly NFSW: NOT SAFE FOR WORK, though were probably seen by your teenagers on tv. In the interests of purely investigative research I noticed one had a more revealing Janet Jackson-type "wardrobe malfunction". One suspects the WWE/McMahon campaign to have the offensive clips removed from YouTube post haste.
Linda "The Mega-Multi-Millionaire" McMahon today announced a tag team of hires that possibly presage a potentially genius #CTGOPBattleRoyale strategy: to hire every single Republican voter in Connecticut.
First up? Former Republican Candidate for Congress in the 5th CD, David Cappiello, and the wife of Connecticut Republican Party Chair Chris Healy.
DANBURY -- Former state Sen. David Cappiello will be serving as the campaign manager for Linda McMahon's U.S. Senate run, officials with the campaign confirmed Thursday.
McMahon, who recently stepped down as the chief executive officer of the WWE, is one of several Republicans seeking the party's nomination for a chance to unseat U.S. Senator Chris Dodd.
Officials with McMahon's campaign confirmed reports Thursday that Cappiello has been retained as the campaign manager.
Suzan Bibisi, a former newspaper reporter and spokeswoman for the AARP in Connecticut who is married to Republican state Chairman Chris Healy, has been hired by U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon.
News of Bibisi's new PR job was first reported in the comments section of the Connecticut Local Politics blog. Courant colleague Rick Green confirmed it with the McMahon campaign.
While he can't afford such a tag team, expect more full-frontal whiny attacks like this from Rob "The Testy Teabagger" Simmons as the battle gets underway in earnest:
"Linda McMahon is entitled to spend as much of her professional wrestling fortune as she wants," Simmons said in a statement.
"But Republican voters will not forget that she also spent tens of thousands of dollars to fund negative attack ads against Republican candidates in Connecticut and around the country, and helped put Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel in power."
Linda McMahon has begun airing tv ads in Connecticut in her quest to secure the Republican nomination and take on Chris Dodd for the U.S. Senate next November. When she recently stepped down as the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) it was known her approach would be a little different. And from not bothering to vote, to publicly supporting Democrats from time to time, not to mention her own wrestling antics, her entering an already crowded Republican field guarantees Connecticut politics won't be boring.
Only a few days ago, I commented on looking forward to how Linda McMahon will utilize her family business' media influence for her campaign in the coming senatorial election. I did not expect it to start so soon!
I live in Brooklyn, NY, smack-dab in the middle of the #1 media district in the US. Being a part of the tri-state area, it's not surprising to see ads targeted towards issues in NJ or CT on local news networks. (I've been keeping tabs on the New Jersey gubernatorial elections for the past few months.) With most of the political ads targeted towards New Yorkers on municipal races, it was a surprise to see this ad come up in the middle of ABC's New Wednesday Night Lineup: http://www.linda2010.com/video_15.html*.
In fact, Mrs. McMahon has a website fully up-and-running, and a page dedicated to her media mini-blitz: linda2010.com/watch
With the 2010 Republican Primary nearly 11 months away, McMahon has decided to ignore her own party's opponents and concentrate on attacking Chris Dodd straight on. A bold move this early on, but I have no doubt she'll be diversifying her ads for different targets.
I have yet to see a poll with McMahon involved, but no doubt her increased and early visibility will be a boon to her campaign. But, living in New York, my viewpoint is skewed: I only get to see ads targeted towards the Gold Coast. Is any other Republican starting ads this early? Are the ads being played in the Hartford/Springfield Media Market?
Regardless, this is a very visible first shot from a money-laden campaign.
(*I'm not 100% sure I saw the same ad she posted on her site. When I first saw it, I didn't even notice a mention of the state she is running in. Indeed, Connecticut is mentioned only once in both her ads. Could she be hoping to draw on a greater base of support in the region?)
One day after her official announcement, #CTGOPBattleRoyale candidate Linda McMahon took out full-page ads this morning in multiple Connecticut newspapers (image below the fold).
Now it seems she is really planning to jump into the ring with both feet, and early.
According to a source familiar with media buys, McMahon's campaign is buying $769,000 of airtime on New York City TV next week.
No word yet on whether Peter Schiff plans to answer with a blimp.
If you thought the Republican primary for Senate - a race already shaping up as a multimillion dollar intramural competition for the fringe right-wing among assorted Bush lackeys, Ron Paul acolytes, out-of-step cultural conservatives, and stumbling unimpressive has-been pols - couldn't get more ridiculous... well, it just did:
Linda E. McMahon is a mother, philanthropist, member of the State Board of Education, and CEO - as well as occasional performer - of the multimillion-dollar World Wrestling Entertainment empire.
Now she's also a candidate for U.S. Senate.
McMahon, who is 60 and lives in Greenwich, is joining an increasingly crowded Republican field hoping to oust the man many perceive as the Senate's weakest incumbent, Connecticut Democrat Christopher J. Dodd.
For some indication of how nasty this primary will get, Ed Patru, McMahon's spokesperson, recently worked at Freedom's Watch, the pro-Iraq war right-wing billionaire-funded attempted "answer" to MoveOn that ran ads in 2007 equating 9/11 with Iraq.
As Roll Call reported this week, the fact that the likes of McMahon still think there is a real opening in the Republican field has to do more than anything with Rob Simmons' perceived weak performance as frontrunner among GOP insiders:
"Sure, it would make it easier for me if other folks were not out there soliciting funds, but they are," Simmons said. "And that's the reality. And this campaign deals with reality. We simply have to do our thing and do it better than the others."
But one Republican strategist, who has done extensive work in the state, called out Simmons for not being aggressive enough with his strategy.
"Simmons had a chance to put this away, but he's been slow out of the gate - surprisingly slow out of the gate," said the consultant.
Simmons stumbled and left an opening, and now McMahon, Foley, and Schiff (who is set to officially announce tomorrow morning) can all easily raise and spend many millions battling him and each other for the rabid, right-wing teabagger vote over the next year.
This primary is looking like a real fight, if a highly entertaining and comedic one - lets hope for all involved that it's a fair one as well.
Linda McMahon, the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, is weighing a run as a Republican against Sen. Chris Dodd (D) in Connecticut in 2010. A source close to McMahon said that she is "seriously considering" the race and touted her as a serious candidate based on a résumé that includes leading a $1 billion publicly traded company based in Stamford, Conn. The source also noted that McMahon would be willing and able to spend significant sums on the race, an x-factor that could make her competitive in a primary against former representative Rob Simmons, former ambassador Tom Foley and state Sen. Sam Caliguri. It remains to be seen how Connecticut voters will react to a McMahon candidacy; her husband, Vince, is the public face of a massive professional wrestling empire that has drawn criticism for the violence of its action and the at times lewd nature of its content. One thing is certain: a McMahon candidacy would turn what is already a fascinating race into a contest with a huge national profile.
One really has to wonder what is going on up in Hartford these days when we read that the Senate with a vote of 34 - 1 and now the House with a vote of 96 - 45 has approved Jodi Rell's nomination of World Wrestling Entertainment's CEO, Linda McMahon, to a seat on the 11-member State Board of Education. You read that right, the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment was today approved to sit on the State Board of Education. You can't make this stuff up!
It seems that in Connecticut government, money and power speak louder than common sense these days. It was hard to see how Jodi Rell could select someone with such dubious credentials to sit on a state board that deals with crucial issues effecting the children of our state. It is equally hard to understand how the legislature could rubber stamp this ludicrous selection by such an overwhelming margin.
Two weeks ago, the Hartford Courant reported that:
In the Senate, Sen. Joan Hartley, a Waterbury Democrat, was the only one to vote against McMahon, saying she believes McMahon would be better suited for boards other than the one that helps set state education policy.
Sen. Hartley should be applauded for her principled stance. As reported in the Hartford Courant today, in the House:
Many high-level Democrats voted against the nomination, including House Majority Leader Denise Merrill of Storrs, deputy speaker David McCluskey of West Hartford, deputy majority leader Melissa Olson of Norwich, longtime judiciary committee co-chairman Michael Lawlor, and the co-chairwoman of the higher education committee, Rep. Roberta Willis of Lakeville. None of them spoke from the floor. Rep. Andrew Fleischmann of West Hartford, who co-chairs the education committee, also voted against McMahon.
A few brave souls did speak against this lunacy:
Rep. Shawn T. Johnston, a Thompson Democrat, said that professional wrestling has changed sharply from decades ago and is now featuring "very beautiful, scantily clad women'' who are often engaged in pillow fights and other contests that he said are not in the best interests of children.
and
Rep. Jack Thompson, a Manchester Democrat, said that America already has enough violence without promoting the matter even further.
"It seems to me that we're sending the wrong message to people - that violence is all right,'' said Thompson. "It's the wrong message. I grew up with a professional wrestler. He lived behind me. We were great friends. At one point, he was Sinbad the Sailor when he was the bad guy. ... When people are jumping off ropes onto other people, it sends the wrong message to children.''
But supporters of McMahon offered such sound logic as the following:
But House Republican leader Lawrence Cafero of Norwalk warned legislators that they should not oppose nominees simply because their professions or activities "might be interpreted as not right for children.'' He asked if lawmakers would vote in the future against smokers because society does not want children to smoke. "So where do we draw the line, folks?'' Cafero asked.
Mr. Cafero, are you serious? You can actually stand up and say this with a straight face. When considering a nominee for the State Board of Education, we shouldn't consider the candidate's profession or activities that might not be "right for children"! Seriously?
How about considering other candidates who have more educational qualifications and who haven't made it their life's work to promote a fake sport that exploits women and glorifies steroid use and violent and abusive behavior? Is anyone in the state legislature thinking about what's best for our children or are they only thinking about their campaign coffers?
(x-posted)
According to ConnecticutBlog and MLN, this is the kindof people that Lieberman takes his campaign money from.
An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group, found that the Connecticut Democrat, who won re-election last month as an independent, received about $73,000 from a variety of industry sources over the past two years.
Among the donors were Linda McMahon, chief executive officer of Stamford-based WWE Entertainment. McMahon said in an e-mail that she gave money to Lieberman because "I make contributions to a variety of candidates whom I respect.
snip
"If you're going to portray yourself as a champion against sex and violence on TV and in video games, it certainly doesn't look like you're completely serious if one of your big contributors makes its money from sex and violence," said Massie Ritsch, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics.
... Asked why he accepted their money, Lieberman first joked, "I really don't get anything [contributions] from that industry.""
Now if that doesn't beat all? Joe is in the middle of a fight against video game and TV violence and he takes money (and denies it!) from the ultimate in violent TV producers:
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