Here’s today’s press release from state Democrats who want to attack Linda McMhaon, the Republican from Greenwich who somehow won appointment, thanks to the General Assembly, to the state Board of Education, who now feels she’s better qualified than anyone to be the next senator from Connecticut. Dodd and the Ds should be so lucky that McMahon, the wife of WWE mogul Vince McMahon, becomes the GOP nominee.
Hartford, CT – Nancy DiNardo, the chairwoman of the Connecticut Democratic Party, has filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint against Linda McMahon, her campaign and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), charging that the WWE made, and McMahon and her campaign committee accepted, prohibited in-kind corporate contributions.
“On October 16, 2009, the political news website Talking Points Memo published a story regarding several distasteful videos from WWE television programming that appeared on YouTube. The YouTube videos showed WWE wrestlers engaging in simulated rape, a public sex scene, and one “wrestler having sex with a corpse.” As reported in the article and elsewhere, Ms. McMahon was criticized for presiding over a company that would produce such programming. In swift response to the negative attention Ms. McMahon was receiving from the videos, her family’s company – that same day – ordered YouTube to remove the videos from its website. Robert Zimmerman, WWE’s Vice President of Public Relations and Corporate Communications, told reporters that WWE ordered the videos to be removed because they were “copyrighted material” and “our intellectual property,” explains the complaint.
The complaint continues, “However, a search of YouTube using the phrase “WWE” continues to produce almost 500,000 results as of the date of this complaint. Thus, it appears that WWE only ordered YouTube to remove the videos that may be damaging to Ms. McMahon’s campaign, and neglected to protect WWE’s other copyrighted material and intellectual property. In sum, WWE has selectively enforced its rights only insofar as they benefit Ms. McMahon’s candidacy. The facts demonstrate that WWE made expenditures in connection with an election, in clear violation of FECA. WWE expended its corporate resources – including the time of Mr. Zimmerman and other corporate personnel, and its attorneys – all used in the service of Ms. McMahon’s campaign to force YouTube to remove only the videos that reflected poorly on Ms. McMahon, while ignoring the multitude of other WWE-owned material still hosted on YouTube.”
“If Linda McMahon is going to talk glowingly about her role as CEO of the WWE, then she also must answer for the kind of female-degrading, sexually-exploitive, steroid-fueled programming it’s become known for,” said Connecticut Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo. “And furthermore, she’s sorely mistaken if she thinks the WWE can do her dirty work for her as she stays above the fray. She might claim to be a different kind of Senator, but Linda McMahon’s illegal coordination with the WWE doesn’t do anything to bolster that image. If anything, it looks like McMahon has chosen to call in a corporation run by her family to fight her battles for her.”
The Connecticut Democratic Party has asked that the FEC look into the matter and impose the maximum fines permitted for such violations.
