Weighing in at....
Ding, ding, ding!
"Connecticut rivals trade barbs in debate over TV ads
HARTFORD — The two candidates for the state’s open US Senate seat took aim at each other’s recent TV ads in their first face-to-face debate last night with Democrat Richard Blumenthal saying the latest criticisms about his military record are nothing new.
Related: Burying Blumenthal
Not exactly old news, either.
The matchup, broadcast on live television, was feisty at times, with McMahon, a former wrestling company executive, accusing the longtime Democratic attorney general of being on the government payroll for all his adult life, not understanding what it takes to create jobs, and misrepresenting her stance on minimum-wage rate levels....
She's got him in a shoulder hold there.
But wait, a reversal.
Blumenthal also accused Republican Linda McMahon and her company, World Wrestling Entertainment, of accepting $10 million in state tax credits while laying off 10 percent of its workforce. He said it was another example of McMahon putting profits above people, a common refrain for his campaign....
Welcome to AmeriKa, AG.
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Related: Connecticut Cage Match
How do you like the match so far?
HARTFORD — It’s a safe bet millionaire businesswoman Linda McMahon is the first candidate for United States Senate whose job experience includes marching into a wrestling ring and kicking a grown man in the groin.
Maybe we NEED THAT KIND of WOMAN down in Washington, ever think of that?
Referee just issued a warning.
And her campaign to capture Connecticut’s Senate seat for Republicans features a similar level of subtlety. She is airing a barrage of TV spots that portray opponent Richard Blumenthal, New England’s longest-serving attorney general, as a captive of special interests, a big-spending career politician, and a liar.
They usually are, yeah.
“We’re doing some punching,’’ the former World Wrestling Entertainment chief executive said cheerfully in an interview, after speaking to a supportive group of gray-haired Republicans in Southbury.
The race to replace retiring Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd — once thought to be a lost cause for the GOP — has been redefined by McMahon’s big-spending, bare-knuckle campaign. She is drawing on her own brand-building savvy and personal fortune in a bid to systematically transform Blumenthal’s public image from diligent public servant to scheming villain, someone more like a WWE wrestler — The Undertaker, perhaps, or Luke Gallows.
The campaign coverage has just as many twists and turns!
With the approach yielding results and McMahon gaining in the polls, the Democratic attorney general began fighting back with greater vigor this past week. He asserts in a new ad that McMahon puts “profits before people.’’
In a fair election....
Related: Brown's Senate Service Template
Not much of a chance then.
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Her message is well tuned to the national atmosphere of anti-incumbent anger and economic anxiety that echoes strongly in the old mill towns and suburbs of Connecticut. The state’s unemployment rate is around 9 percent, not much below the national average.
Which means it is much higher.
She plays up her story as a comeback entrepreneur, a plucky and independent businesswoman who rose from bankruptcy three decades ago to run a publicly traded corporation that created 600 jobs. She said she would seek to block tax increases, including for the wealthy, and would oppose cap-and-trade climate legislation.
In the televised debate last week in Hartford, she said she would go to Washington and shake things up.
“Government. Government. Government,’’ McMahon declared, nearly spitting out the words. “Government does not create jobs.’’
Somebody fighting dirty!
Until recently, Blumenthal seemed to be rocked on his heels by the assault.
She's got an advantage!
In January, he was a 41-point favorite to beat McMahon. Since then, she defeated the Republican establishment’s pick in the GOP primary and attracted huge amounts of publicity.
You go, girl!
Polls released in the last two weeks have varied, showing Blumenthal with a margin of just 3 percentage points or with a 10- to 12-point lead. Much to the relief of many Connecticut Democrats, Blumenthal unveiled his own television advertising spot earlier this month, which is seen as necessary if he wants to halt her momentum.
“I’m being outspent 10, 12, 13 times. The amount of spending in this race by my opponent is unprecedented, staggering,’’ Blumenthal said last week in an interview after touring a fuel cell plant in Torrington.
Awwwwwwwww.
He said he will rely primarily on his accomplishments during 20 years as attorney general, suing large corporations on behalf of Connecticut residents.
Not a good selling point this time out.
As a senator, he said, he would be able to advocate for the creation of jobs through contracts and subsidies for start-up technologies. He supports extending income tax cuts for the lower and middle class, but not the wealthy. He favored the House version of cap-and-trade and opposed the 2008 bank bailouts.
“People in Connecticut know me,’’ he said. “They know they can count on me. They know I have stood up for them again, and again, and again.’’
Outside help for Blumenthal is pouring in. President Obama and Bill Clinton have visited Connecticut to help him raise money. Michelle Obama is expected later this month.
Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown joined McMahon at a rally Saturday, telling a crowd of several hundred in Milford to send a message to the Democratic establishment.
Brown was trying to help McMahon continue mining voter discontent like that expressed by Frank Maglisco, a 70-year-old machine repairman who is supporting McMahon despite being a registered Democrat.
“We need to get the old buzzards out,’’ said Maglisco. He was preparing to be laid off from his job at Marlin Firearms, which is closing its plant in North Haven and eliminating 265 positions.
Blumenthal has won reelection as attorney general four times since capturing the seat in 1990, each time by an overwhelming majority.
That was a different time.
His longevity both helps him and hurts him, said Edward M. Kennedy Jr., son of the late Massachusetts senator....
Blumenthal has also given McMahon a major opening for attacks. The New York Times this year reported that, in remarks before various groups, he said he served in Vietnam. In fact, as his campaign website correctly states, Blumenthal was a Marine reservist and did not serve overseas. He has apologized for what he described as misstatements, but McMahon has continued to use the discrepancy as a bludgeon.
“If he lied about Vietnam, what else is he lying about?’’ asks the voice-over narration at the end of a McMahon TV spot airing this past week.
It is the question that all Americans should be asking regarding their government and newspapers.
It remains unclear whether McMahon can sustain her surge. Her favorability rating was only 39 percent in one recent poll, compared with a 53 percent favorability rating for Blumenthal.
So she is the villain of the match?
Another potential trouble spot for McMahon: Women are backing Blumenthal in greater numbers, 60 percent to 34 percent in one poll last week.
A reversal -- and I couldn't be more disappointed in the women of Connecticut.
Part of the reason for McMahon’s lower popularity may be the unruly image of professional wrestling, say specialists. WWE has been the subject of negative news reports about steroid use, a short-lived production partnership between the company and the producers of “Girls Gone Wild,’’ and the company’s lobbying in Washington against proposed restrictions on violent programming.
I was just wondering if WRESTLING LIED US into WARS or KILLED ANYONE?
It may be a lot of things, but DID IT DO THOSE THINGS like my NEWSPAPER and GOVERNMENT?
Videos posted on YouTube show McMahon occasionally entering the ring herself and playing a role in wrestling’s bizarre dramas.
Has ANYONE seen some of the RIDICULOUS S*** that passes for "official explanat5ions" in the NEWSPAPERS?
The groin kick is one, for example, which she performs while wearing a smart pink blazer and holding a WWE microphone. In another, McMahon is slapped to the mat by her own daughter, who towers over her. Vincent McMahon Jr., the candidate’s husband and chairman of WWE, smashes their daughter to the mat in a third video, as thousands of fans boo.
A SCRIPTED and STAGED PRODUCTION, huh?
Just like a NEWSPAPER or CORPORATE MEDIA BROADCAST!
Ms. McMahon should feel right at home in Washington.
“I think the wrestling stuff has hurt her,’’ said Douglas Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “People are not wild about her.’’
McMahon dismisses the televised antics as part of a grand “soap opera’’ that is merely staged entertainment.
She been watching the TV news?
Asked to confirm that the violent confrontation with her daughter was not real, McMahon replied: “She clearly hit me — it was actually a slap. But clearly it was planned.’’
If only the SAME COULD BE SAID about the WARS (which were also planned)!
How this is playing in the land of steady habits, as Connecticut is known, has not been the subject of recent polling. The campaign itself is beginning to turn off some voters.
AmeriKan politics will do that to you, yeah.
Elizabeth Kaplan, a medical publishing employee from Suffield, said she likes McMahon’s message about the economy and job growth. But she said she is sick of the negative tone and was disappointed by the debate in Hartford: “It was just like their ads, only in person.’’
We all are.
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And look, Blumenthal makes a move and has Linda in a leg lock:
"Conn. poll finds a shift in Democrat’s favor
NEW YORK — Democrat Richard Blumenthal has opened an 11 percentage point lead in Connecticut’s Senate race over Republican Linda McMahon, the former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., according to a poll released yesterday....
Just ANOTHER in a long list of up-and-down polls.
In a Sept. 28 survey, Blumenthal led by only 3 points, 49-46 percent, over McMahon....
It's probably closer to that.
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I suspect Blumenthal will win by a few points and Democrats will hold the Senate by the slimmest of margins.
Shame on you, Connecticut.
And did you realize that will give Connecticut two Jewish senators.
The Zionist takeover continues.
