Comments(2)

|

E-mail

|

Print

Some information that I was unable, for space reasons, to fit into my exploration of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon’s 1976 personal bankruptcy, published tonight on-line and in tomorrow’s Hearst newspapers:

1. If you read the story, you’ll find that while there is not much of a paper trail, I did come across “a few scraps of court records” that provided the names of some creditors.

Some banks are named. All are defunct or long ago merged into giant financial institutions.

I did manage to track down representatives of families who own or owned two of the creditors mentioned – Bristol Construction Co. and Oil Heat & Engineering. They were extremely nice and patient but unable to provide any help or even confirm the businesses and the relatives running them back in 1976 were ever owed money by Linda and her husband, Vince.

2. What were the McMahons doing to make a living in Cape Cod? The story states that in 1979, three years after filing for personal bankruptcy, the couple moved to Cape Cod, then returned to Connecticut, finally settling in their current hometown of Greenwich after purchasing the company they transformed into World Wrestling Entertainment from Vince’s father.

According to one source – the 2002 book “Sex, Lies and Headlocks” – the McMahons purchased the Cape Cod Coliseum. The deal “involved no money down. Instead Vince would pay a monthly mortgage … using the cash flow produced by the coliseum to come up with the payment … Having never before had this kind of responsibility, Vinnie and Linda worked all hours to make the coliseum a success.”

Evan Weiner, a freelance sports journalist from Westchester who has written a book, “The Business and Politics of Sports,” told me that the Cape Cod experience informed the couple’s approach to turning WWE into a hybrid of sports and entertainment. It was while running the coliseum that Vince realized the audiences for professional wrestling and for concerts were not all that different, leading to WWE’s work with MTV in the 1980s, Weiner said.

“He used the Cape Cod Coliseum as sort of his experiment grounds. He basically used that as a laboratory and it was there that he cooked up all of that stuff that he ended up eventually doing in World Wrestling Entertainment,” Weiner said.

3. A profile of Linda McMahon published recently by The Daily Beast.com raised new questions about the bankruptcy because of the following sentence: “At one point, when they were living in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in the 1970s, they went bankrupt and briefly depended on food stamps.”

Democrats jumped all over that line because it appeared that McMahon either could not get the story that she has been telling on the campaign trail to connect with voters straight or because the family had actually gone bankrupt twice and this was the first time it had been mentioned during the Senate race.

“Neither Linda, nor the campaign, has ever insinuated there were two bankruptcies,” McMahon spokesman Ed Patru told me in an e-mail. He said Daily Beast reporter Lloyd Grove “mistakenly noted in a recent report the McMahons went bankrupt while living in Gaithersburg. I have made Grove aware that the political world is turning on its head over this issue … They did not declare bankruptcy in Gaithersburg. They were just poor.”

I e-mailed The Daily Beast asking them to confirm they had been contacted by Patru and that Grove had made a mistake.

Andrew Kirk with The Beast replied, “We have no comment on the private discussions that have taken place between Lloyd Grove and Mr. Patru.”

I asked if The Beast had issued an update/clarification/correction, because I hadn’t seen one.

“No. We clearly state if an article has been updated on the piece,” Andrew wrote back.

The article has yet to be updated.

Comments

|

E-mail

|

Print

Interviewed former Republican U.S. Senate candidate and Tea Party favorite Peter Schiff of Weston Tuesday for a story I’m working on.

During the course of the conversation Schiff told me that beginning Monday, October 18 he will be hosting a radio program from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m., five days a week, on a local Fairfield County station.

“I’m going to try to syndicate it and get it on as many stations as we can in the Connecticut market. It’s going to be about investment, the economy and politics,” Schiff told me.

I tried to confirm this with the station, but it’s been two days and I’ve heard nothing back, so for now I won’t provide those details until something official is announced.

Schiff said he wants to invite various candidates for office, including his opponent in the GOP’s August 10 primary – Linda McMahon – and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Dick Blumenthal to appear on air prior to the November elections.

“I’d love to have Dick Blumenthal on with me. I doubt he’ll come on with me,” Schiff laughed.

But he said he will ask hard questions of every guest, regardless of their party affiliation.

“No one’s going to get a pass if they come on,” Schiff said. “I’m not just going to go after the Democrats.”

Schiff is planning on voting for McMahon, although he said she has not been in touch since they met at his home in late August to discuss his active participation in her campaign.

Schiff still harbors some reservations about the candidate.

He cited as an example McMahon’s response last week when Democrats incorrectly claimed she had promised Tea Party activists she will go to Washington and abolish the departments of education, energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.

McMahon’s campaign, pointing to footage of the Tea Party event, emphasized that McMahon said she was not prepared to promise to do away with any federal department without first looking at it and understanding its operations.

“I’d like her to come out and say, ‘You’re damn right I’ll abolish the education department’,” Schiff said. “I want the Linda McMahon who is willing to cut government spending. The reason she came up with education and energy is those were two I used as examples. I can understand you say, ‘If she says these things she might not get elected.’ If she’s not going to say it now will she do the right thing when she gets elected?”

Still, Schiff said, he respects the fact McMahon and her husband, Vince, built their company – Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment – and wants her representing Connecticut in Congress.

“There’s no chance Dick Blumenthal is going to do the right thing. There’s a chance Linda McMahon might,” Schiff said. “If you want somebody who might cut government spending, Linda McMahon is the choice that we have.”

Comments

|

E-mail

|

Print

In the race for U.S. Senate, Democrat Richard Blumenthal has been relying on endorsements to help him raise funds, garner free press and additional campaign support.

His opponent, Republican Linda McMahon, neither needs them nor wants them.

The self-funded former executive has millions to spend on her campaign, so she does not need to rely on subordinates to spread her message.

And because she wants to be perceived as an outsider, she has to be careful about being seen on the campaign trail with folks who could undermine that narrative.

But I expect McMahon today was happy to earn the support of the National Federation of Independent Business at an event in East Hartford.

She is running on her experience as former CEO of Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment.

“Linda McMahon’s positions on key small business issues demonstrate her dedication to reducing the cost of health care and fighting for tax reform,” Lisa Goeas, NFIB vice president of political operations, said in a statement. “In the United States Senate, she will be a vocal advocate for affordable health insurance and a determined opponent of government mandates that punish the nation’s small firms … Connecticut voters can rest assured that Linda McMahon will not shrink from the fight to cut government spending and reduce the rapidly-growing waste of taxpayers’ dollars. She’s no stranger to opposing misguided federal policies and has been very outspoken about the need for government to get out of the way of small businesses so they can create jobs and grow our economy.”

McMahon has said she would have opposed the recently-enacted health care reforms passed by Congress but has offered few specifics about how she would expand coverage and reduce costs.

Also WWE classifies its wrestlers as independent contractors so the company does not provide health insurance to talent. WWE recently confirmed the state is auditing the company to determine whether it mis-classifies wrestlers and behind-the-scenes employees as independent contractors to avoid paying benefits and taxes.

For more on McMahon’s plans for the economy and job creation, visit this link. For Blumenthal’s, visit this link.

UPDATE: The New London Day’s Ted Mann attended the endorsement event.

Comments

|

E-mail

|

Print

Shut out of Monday’s first, highly-anticipated debate between Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Republican Linda McMahon, third party candidate John Mertens has come up with a creative alternative.

I also understand that Blumenthal and McMahon are hard at work preparing.

Blumenthal’s handlers give him an electric shock every time he claims, “Our lawsuits actually create jobs” and refers to his service IN Vietnam rather than stateside in the Marine Corps Reserves.

And McMahon has used some of the $50 million she has pledged to spend on the race to build a replica of the Bushnell Theater in Hartford where the debate will take place, along with android versions of her opponent and the mostly-Republican audience.

She’s got moderator Bret Baier of Fox News playing himself, of course.

Comments(7)

|

E-mail

|

Print

Former President “Teflon” Bill Clinton, nicknamed such because despite personal and political baggage he remains a popular figure, was in New Haven Sunday to stump for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Dick Blumenthal, Connecticut’s long-time attorney general.

But perhaps Clinton has more in common with Blumenthal’s Republican opponent, Linda McMahon, who, according to today’s Quinnipiac University poll, has knocked his 41-point lead in January down to just 3 points.

That is a stunning achievement and if you are in any way involved in the McMahon campaign, you’ve got to be feeling pretty proud of your hard work at this point and thinking the $22 million she has invested so far in this first-time bid for office is paying off.

And she’s risen in the polls despite the fact:

1. McMahon resides, unlike the majority of the voters she hopes to represent in Congress, in a gated Greenwich neighborhood, owns a boat named “Sexy Bitch” and wants to extend tax cuts for the wealthy, herself included.

2. The family’s company, World Wrestling Entertainment in Stamford, was investigated by Congress just a few years ago as part of a probe into steroid use in professional wrestling.

3. Questions have been raised over whether McMahon herself interfered in a federal investigation of the company in the late 1980s.

4. WWE is currently being audited by the state of Connecticut to determine if the company mis-classified employees as independent contractors, enabling the McMahons to avoid paying certain benefits and taxes.

5. Those independent contractors include WWE’s talent, some of whom have died at a very young age, including during this very campaign, raising questions about the toll the business McMahon’s using to fund her campaign has taken on the performers.

6. WWE’s programming over the years has, critics argue, been degrading to women and the mentally handicapped.

7. McMahon talks about her skills creating jobs, but WWE laid off 10 percent of its workers and much of the company’s merchandise is manufactured in China.

8. McMahon’s resume of public service is limited, as is her apparent knowledge of some high profile controversies within the state she wants to represent, such as immigration issues in New Haven and the proposal to build a giant natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound.

And just for the heck of it, one of McMahon’s key economic advisers partied with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. If she were a Democrat I guarantee that Republicans would not let that go unnoticed by voters.

Whew! That’s a lot of bad publicity. None of it perhaps rises to Monica Lewinsky levels of scandal, but still…

And yet those Quinnipiac numbers don’t lie – from 41 points to 3 points.

Sure a greater percentage – 43 percent – of the likely voters polled have a negative opinion of McMahon than earlier this month, when that number stood at 41 percent.  But let me repeat, from 41 points to 3 points.

It’s obvious much of McMahon’s rise has to do with her ability to fund a positive message about herself and changes in how people get their news.

In these days when fewer and fewer folks obtain their information from newspapers, the impact of any one story is lessened.

The Waterbury Republican-American criticizes her and her company for producing products in China? The New London Day breaks some new story about steroids in wrestling? Whether you care or not, if you don’t read those newspapers or visit their web sites, you might never learn of those issues to form an opinion.

Former Republican Congressman Rob Simmons’ campaign during the GOP primary for Senate was constantly frustrated by the fact a news source in one corner of the state would publish a story critical of McMahon but it would not get picked up by other news sources.

But no matter where they live, McMahon has made sure voters have been exposed to advertising touting her skills as an executive and her ability to create jobs and criticizing Blumenthal as a dissembling career politician.

I called up Ben Davol, a former Republican operative-turned-independent voter, New London Day columnist and political commentator who admires what the Tea Party is doing to get citizens involved in their government. What does he make of Teflon Linda?

“I from the beginning have always felt that the idea of going after her WWE experience was a huge mistake,” Davol said. “The Simmons campaign did that for a year and where did it get Rob? Back clipping hedges at his house. The Blumenthal campaign has picked up what the Simmons’ campaign did and tried to use it … The reason she has $50 million to spend on her campaign is because WWE is an incredibly popular entertainment source for people. Whatever’s been talked about – steroids or wrestlers dying – that does not impact peoples’ day-to-day lives. It simply does not. I’ve never understood going after that … I’m sure the McMahon folks, the first thing they thought of when she was running was the whole ‘WWE issue’. They were prepared for this from the beginning. Everybody’s fallen into the trap.”

Davol said he believes McMahon has gotten a free ride from her Democratic and Republican opponents over her lack of experience and the lack of specifics she offers on issues impacting Connecticut and the nation.

“You look at the last mailing – it’s all very ‘surface’,” he said.

But if that is the case, I asked, what does that say about Connecticut voters and the fact they are close to electing her Connecticut’s next U.S. Senator?

“She’s an attractive candidate. Well spoken. She’s a very likable person. A very good story. Not to mention the fact she’s a pretty good marketer. Voters are going ‘Sure. Why not? Sounds good to me!’ Voters are not going to get deep into a lot of specific issues unless presented to them to think about,” Davol said.

But there is also the fact that voters are angry, a point that is reinforced by today’s Quinnipiac poll.

So if you’re still with me let’s wrap-up this blog post where I began – Clinton’s visit on Sunday.

During his half-hour speech, the former President told the crowd of Democrats that Republican candidates nationwide want to make the mid-terms “a referendum on people’s anger, our disappointment, our apathy, with a good dose of amnesia thrown in. If this is a referendum, we’ve got a lot of trouble here.”

As of today, it looks like it’s a referendum in Connecticut and Linda McMahon is giving Dick Blumenthal a lot of trouble.

Comments

|

E-mail

|

Print

As the nation prepares for the mid-term elections, the Democratic Party’s message can be boiled down to this: We understand the economy is still shaky and people are out of work. We feel your pain. But don’t forget this all began while Republican President George W. Bush was still in office. Democratic President Barack Obama just took over less than two years ago. Give him and us more time.

Agree with those sentiments or not, that’s their message.

That was Obama’s point when he headlined a fundraiser for U.S. Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal a few weeks ago in Stamford. The President equated the Republican Party to the guy who drives a car into a ditch, stands on the side watching while you’re trying to get the vehicle out, then after you’ve done all the work, asks for the keys back.

When former Democratic President Bill Clinton spoke at a rally for Blumenthal this morning in New Haven, he delivered a similarly-themed address.

He said the GOP’s goal in the mid-term elections is “to just make this a referendum on people’s anger, our disappointment, our apathy, with a good dose of amnesia thrown in … The Republican argument goes something like this: ‘We left the country in a $3 trillion hole after driving the economy down for seven years before the explosion in September, 2008. You gave us eight years to dig that hole. They (Obama and Democrats in Congress) had 21 months to dig out. We’re not out and roaring again. Throw them out and put us back in so we can put our shovels to work again’.”

Several minutes after the rally wrapped up, the Republican National Committee e-mailed this response to the media, reinforcing Clinton’s and Obama’s claims:

“With the economy in shambles, poll numbers sinking, and his party pushing for yet another tax-hike, Richard Blumenthal needs all the help he can get.  Unfortunately, it seems as though the more high-level surrogates that Washington sends to Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal’s lead over Linda McMahon erodes even further. Connecticut voters are rejecting the failed Obama-Blumenthal policies that have led to 9.1 percent unemployment and worsened the state’s path to recovery, and not even a visit from the former President will save his floundering candidacy in November.” – Parish Braden, RNC Spokesman.

Comments

|

E-mail

|

Print

Former Democratic President William Jefferson Clinton was in New Haven today to rally the party faithful and endorse his friend of 40 years, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, in his bid for U.S. Senate.

After speaking kindly of Blumenthal and making the case for his election, Clinton dove into an energetic, meaty, wonkish, sometimes rambling, 20-or-so minute speech attempting to explain why Democrats will continue to move the country forward when it comes to the economy, job creation and healthcare, while Republicans will only take the nation backwards.

Not once did Clinton mention Blumenthal’s opponent, former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon, by name. He attempted a professional wrestling joke which, honestly, I missed because I cannot type as fast as he speaks. But the reporter sitting next to me didn’t quite catch it, either, so it must have been pretty inconsequential.

Afterward I grabbed some audience members to gauge their reaction.

Clinton told the crowd of a couple thousand that he knew he was already preaching to the faithful, and their job was to go out and spread the message to voters.

One woman – Eloise Suh – told me she thought the speech at times was “too broad” and did not focus enough on Blumenthal.

But, she added: “All the details he gave us made us think about what the candidate can do in this economy.”

Jordan Moye, a student at the school where Clinton spoke – Wilbur Cross High  – is only 16 but he seemed to have no problem grasping what the former President had to say.

“I totally agree with what he said,” Moye said, adding that during his Advance Placement Government and Politics class he took a test that recently revealed he is an up-and-coming liberal Democrat.

State House Majority Leader Denise Merrill, D-Mansfield, was wowed by Clinton’s appearance.

“That’s Bill Clinton. He’s the old Bill Clinton we know and love,” Merrill said. “He takes the whole world, wraps it up and puts it in terms people can understand … And he goes on for way too long. I thought it was brilliant.”

I asked labor leader John Olsen, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO if he feared Clinton’s detailed message will be lost on angry voters frustrated with the slow growth of the economy and looking for change in Washington.

That is McMahon’s selling point – that she, unlike Blumenthal, is a political outsider who will bring executive experience to Congress and use it to boost the economy and create jobs.

Olsen was impressed by Clinton, but said Democrats need to boil down his words into easy-to-understand talking points.

“If you’re going door-to-door, you don’t have that much time,” Olsen said.

Comments(4)

|

E-mail

|

Print

Forget the fact that regardless of any prior political experience and even after donating to some Democrats she won her party’s nomination for U.S. Senate and is making Democratic opponent Richard Blumenthal sweat.

The true sign that Republican Linda McMahon, former head of Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment, has arrived on the political scene is that she has managed to draw a Kennedy into the race.

Or, in the words of campaign spokesman Ed Patru, “Camelot yesterday bestowed its unofficial seal of approval” on Blumenthal.

By now those of you who care about these things I’m sure have heard about the war of words between Edward Kennedy Jr. and McMahon over her campaign’s use of the late President John F. Kennedy in a web ad defending continued tax cuts for the rich.

If not, CT News Junkie has a nice synopsis. And McMahon’s camp today, rather than backing down, issued a letter to Kennedy defending the ad.

But please just sit back and relish the absurdity for a moment. A member of the Kennedy clan and all the images, positive and negative, that name conjures and a member of the McMahon clan and the images, postive and negative, that name conjures are fighting over the intentions of a long-dead president.

It’s Camelot versus the WWE. It’s a family some of whom chased skirts versus a family that made money off of female wrestlers who took them off (and whose patriarch, Vince, to be fair to the Kennedys, has admitted doing a bit of skirt chasing). It’s a family whose members represented a generation versus a family whose members have entertained generations. A family that has suffered through real assassinations versus one that has staged them for viewers.

“There’s almost a ‘Saturday Night Live’-dimension to it, to see the former CEO of WWE arguing with a member of the Kennedy clan who’s not in politics here in Connecticut,” Gary Rose, chairman of the department of government and politics at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, just told me. “Somehow they both feel compelled to respond to each other. I’m not sure how to characterize this. It suggests that sometimes our politics can really become just almost comical.”

Rose called the Kennedy/McMahon fight an “inconsequential … sidebar” to the race that is of minimal interest to voters.

“The Kennedy name here in Connecticut was at one time a really major name in Connecticut politics,” Rose said. “But I’m not sure there are any voters out there that really would care. We’re talking about a policy that a President had advocated 50 years ago. Maybe very elderly Democrats might feel offended but other than that I can’t imagine anything like this is going to have any impact.”

But Rose did admit that Republicans may be enjoying the show and that McMahon’s getting a Kennedy worked up might even be considered a “badge of honor” in a state where the GOP once only fantasized about beating Blumenthal.

“I think maybe the Republicans are probably saying, ‘This is wonderful’,” Rose said.

This is hardly the first time McMahon has used a respected dead President to defend herself. She in the past, when answering questions about the family business, has pointed out that Abraham Lincoln wrestled.