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Over the past month AFSCME People, the political action arm of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has been mailing eye-catching campaign literature to Connecticut voters deciding between Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican Linda McMahon for U.S. Senate.

The mailers regurgitate talking points Democrats and their allies in organized labor have been using against McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive, since her first bid for Senate in 2010. They point out that when she was still involved in the family-owned World Wrestling Entertainment empire, she was a cold-hearted corporate exec, slashing jobs to line her own pockets.

What makes AFSCME People’s ads so distinctive is the use of real people and the implication the folks pictured actually got pink slips from WWE.

I phoned AFSCME and WWE because, despite the fact she’s been pursuing office for three years, McMahon’s former employees have for the most part remained mum on the subject of how she ran the company. Sure the occasional disgruntled wrestler has spoken out, but people who worked in WWE’s offices in Stamford and were sent to the unemployment line have sat on the sidelines.

WWE spokesman Brian Flinn after reviewing the mailers last week told me, “To the best of my knowledge none of these people have ever worked for WWE and they appear to be actors.”

Actually, not even actors. Stock images, according to AFSCME People.

“Just like Linda McMahon’s professional ‘wrestling’ shows, political mail is designed to elicit an emotional reaction,” AFSCME Assistant Political Director Seth Johnson said in a statement. “Just because the images on our mail are representative of the hundreds of workers whose livelihoods Linda McMahon destroyed, it doesn’t make them any less ‘real’ as a campaign message.”

Two years ago in her race against Democrat Richard Blumenthal, McMahon produced mailers featuring veterans furious over Blumenthal’s misstatements about Vietnam. What wasn’t mentioned was the fact most of the angry vets were also politically active in local Republican politics.

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Trackers are hired by campaigns to follow an opponent and record his or her public appearances with a video camera, hoping to capture something that can be used against them.

Republican Linda McMahon and Democrat Chris Murphy both employ trackers in their battle for the U.S. Senate.

McMahon’s tracker tagged along with Murphy and his supporters earlier today as the candidate toured small businesses in Bridgeport.

Mayor Bill Finch, who showed up late after attending another event, immediately had a bit of fun with McMahon’s staffer.

“Hi Linda,” he waived into the camera.

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The folks running Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon’s campaign know the simplest message is the most effective.

That’s why McMahon and her people continue to insist her opponent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, who prior to his election to Congress missed mortgage and tax payments, must have subsequently received a special home interest line of credit from Webster Bank.

Here’s the latest mailer that showed up at my house yesterday.

It’s a masterful line of attack because it’s so simple to boil down into a potent phrase voters understand – seven words with a question mark. Many residents will not bother to track down news articles to learn more about the evidence to the contrary. And Murphy has struggled to explain his personal financial problems.

But today – hours after the two candidates met Thursday for their second of four debates – it’s the McMahon campaign that is in the position of trying to mount an overly complicated defense.

Murphy’s camp has decided the candidate’s best way to deal with McMahon’s attacks is to portray them as efforts to dodge discussing the issues.

“Over and over again she reverts to these character assassinations,” Murphy told the audience Thursday night.

Murphy had a strong performance in their first debate Sunday, and, at least judging by her demeanor while meeting with reporters following Thursday’s debate, McMahon wasn’t overjoyed with their second meeting.

So today the McMahon campaign is issuing excruciatingly detailed charts to prove it was Murphy, not McMahon, who spent most of Thursday’s debate on the attack, rather than discussing the issues.

How can you tell who performed better in a debate? Which side is going to greater lengths to convince voters and the media their candidate was the victor.

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As much as Democrat Chris Murphy wants to tie Linda McMahon, his Republican opponent for the U.S. Senate, to the Tea Party, she doesn’t make it too easy.

For every example the Murphy folks have of McMahon seemingly kissing up to the more right-leaning members of the Connecticut GOP (like saying at a Tea Party forum in April she would like to establish sunset provisions for Social Security), there are more examples of the candidate attempting to distance herself from conservative orthodoxy by making promises about what she won’t cut.

For someone who wants to go to Washington and take on federal spending, McMahon sure has declared plenty of areas off limits – Social Security and Medicare, defense spending, and, as we reported today, food stamps and the social safety net.

Murphy’s camp will argue it’s all a ploy to win blue Connecticut and McMahon will arrive in Washington and shed her moderate costume for Tea Party duds.

Oops. Wrong Tea Party…

That’s more like it…

And yet if you’re a member of the Tea Party, you may feel more comfortable with McMahon than Murphy, but you’re also frustrated that she has not offered more specifics when it comes to shrinking government.

At least that was the case when I spoke to Tanya Bachand, a Tea Party organizer in Connecticut, for today’s story about McMahon’s defense of food stamps.

Bachand had some trouble identifying what she believes McMahon will cut if elected and wished the candidate would be bolder and not “soft-pedal” her responses.

“I get frustrated with both of them (McMahon and Murphy) in that they talk in these sound bites and absolutes, like ‘I want to preserve defense jobs in Connecticut,’” Bachand said. “Neither of them is really talking about cuts.”

Why isn’t McMahon?

“I think she’s afraid of offending people and of how Democrats are going to spin it,” Bachand said.

Or perhaps McMahon is serious about protecting a variety of constituencies – seniors and the disabled, low income residents, the defense industry – and really is the moderate she claims to be.

As one prominent Republican told me recently, “Everybody is flailing trying to figure out who Linda McMahon is.”

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Unaffiliated voters, meet Linda McMahon.

Some of you may have heard she’s the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate.

Don’t be fooled.

You haven’t seen her latest campaign mailer, directed right at you.

The term “Republican” appears once, and even then as almost an afterthought.

“Linda wants to go to Washington and work with Independents, Democrats and Republicans to find common ground on important issues…”

I’m sure Republicans are grateful they’re listed third

When she names Senators she’d emulate, there’s no mention of party affiliation, either.

“She will lead in the tradition of respected independent leaders like Senator Joe Lieberman (the self-described independent Democrat who backed a Republican for president in 2008 and whose retirement gave Linda an opening for this second run for U.S. Senate), Senator Susan Collins (a Maine Republican), Senator Scott Brown (a Massachusetts Republican) and others who buck the party line and do what is best for the country.”

McMahon successfully petitioned her way on to the November ballot as the Independent Party candidate, allowing her to also state in the mailer that she “is the Independent Choice for the U.S. Senate.” (Although, frankly, she was also the only game in town for a third party trying to remain relevant in Connecticut politics).

The mailer – which you can view in the photos below – really is something.

GOP Chairman Jerry Labriola hadn’t seen it when I phoned him. But when I read Labriola the contents he called McMahon “a stalwart Republican” who has been very supportive of the party, its candidates and the fundamental Republican principal of fiscal responsibility.

“It’s no surprise to me,” Labriola said. ““We have a long tradition of Yankee Republicans who have shown an independent streak while at the same time voting in a pro growth, fiscally responsible manner and putting the interests of Connecticut at the forefront.”

McMahon actually beat one in August’s GOP primary – ex-U.S. Rep. Chris Shays.

I’m sure some of her fellow Republicans may cringe when they learn McMahon is promising to “buck the party line.” But the smart ones know whether she means it or not, McMahon needs the support of unaffiliated voters to win in blue Connecticut. And they can take comfort knowing at the end of the day she still has that “R” next to her name.

Here’s the mailer, in four parts:

Front

Inside Left

Inside Right

Back

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Not this Moses.

This Moses.

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The Huffington Post tonight is reporting on Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon’s “little noticed” remarks made at a Tea Party event in Waterford in April about Social Security.

According to the report, McMahon made a vague reference to a Social Security Act “sunset provision” when asked about strengthening Social Security and Medicare.

It’s the kind of comment that can cause a bit of a distraction for a campaign and a candidate like McMahon, who simply does not have a reputation as a policy wonk, because opponents will fill in the blanks for voters. You can just hear the Democratic ads now, narrated by a woman, of course, to appeal to that segment of voters McMahon needs to win over: “Republican Linda McMahon told Tea Party extremists she wants to eliminate Social Security!!! Linda McMahon: Bad for the elderly and disabled!!!”

(For those who are interested, here’s what McMahon had to say about Social Security in an interview with our Hearst newspapers during her first Senate bid in 2010.)

All campaigns play the “this is what my opponent REALLY meant” game. “You didn’t build that,” anyone?

This same thing happened to McMahon during her 2010 race after she spoke that April to a Tea Party audience.

McMahon made comments that some interpreted at the time as her being open to eliminating the departments of education, energy and environmental protection. Her campaign then had to attempt to clarify what McMahon said.

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Sometimes narrative is everything in political campaigns.

And for a few weeks now the narrative about the race for U.S. Senate in Connecticut has been that Republican Linda McMahon has made Democrat Chris Murphy her… um… there’s a term I’m searching for… tip of my tongue…

Well, the narrative has been McMahon’s run a really good, very aggressive, self-funded campaign and in some polls has made a race in a reliably blue state too close to call by defining the still unknown Murphy before he can introduce himself to voters.

Today’s new data from Public Policy Polling provides a bit of relief to the Murphy camp.

It also refutes findings in earlier polls that McMahon, who during her first run for Senate in 2010 had problems with women, has dealt with that liability.

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Murphy leads by 6 in CT-Senate race