Political Capitol

I met with state Sen. Edith Prague, D-Columbia this afternoon for a report I’m working on.

While waiting outside of her capitol office an aide pointed out a signed and framed editorial cartoon by the Hartford Courant’s Bob Englehart depicting the 84-year-old Prague as a business-sucking vampire.

You can view the cartoon and Englehart’s explanation of it here.

Englehart drew the piece in opposition to Prague’s crusade as a Labor Committee chairman to pass legislation mandating certain companies provide their workers paid sick leave. Critics argue these are not the economic times to be passing new mandates on business.

Prague anticipates the Labor Committee will pass the legislation on to the full state Senate on Tuesday. You can read up on the legislation as well as plenty of testimony, pro and con, submitted at a February 25 public hearing here.

As for the cartoon, Prague recalled her neighbor phoning her the day it appeared and telling her she had to look at the newspaper.

“He thought it was hysterical,” Prague said.

She said she obtained the signed and framed copy so her great-grand-children will know what she looked like.

“At least he put my earings on,” Prague said of her caricature.

During Monday night’s Democratic U.S. Senate debate between Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Mystic businessman Merrick Alpert I was certain the former candidate mentioned something about cancelling another manned moon landing.

I thought: ” Wait. What?!?! Where did THAT come from!?!?!?”

But when I reviewed my notes, I hadn’t written Blumenthal’s comments down, apparently out of some kind of shock that the moon landing had made it into a Connecticut political campaign in 2010. And none of the colleagues I spoke with or others who watched the debate recalled the remark. Not even state GOP Chairman Chris Healy, who probably more than anyone else was looking for reasons to mock Blumenthal’s performance, caught his moon comment.

Well, after taking the time to actually re-watch portions of the debate on YouTube I can assure the voters of Connecticut that if they send Blumenthal to the U.S. Senate, he will indeed oppose another mission to the moon.

Blumenthal staked out his tough anti-lunar position in the final seconds of this YouTube clip on the Iran section of the debate with Alpert.

“Whatever we do abroad, whatever we do on Iran we need to be mindful of the debts we will be creating for our children and future generations and cut spending where we can,” Blumenthal told the audience. “Why not, for example, delay putting another man on the moon? That would save billions of dollars.”

To be fair, this topic actually has been in the news recently.

But Blumenthal should be careful. I understand this group has a particularly powerful grass roots following that can end the career of New England politicians who no longer believe America can afford to play among the stars.

C’mon, Dick. Let them see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.

World Wrestling Entertainment spokesman Robert Zimmerman, who I realize is doing his job, issued a statement today responding to an article I wrote Sunday on an aborted federal effort to investigate steroids in professional wrestling in 2009.

Former WWE CEO Linda McMahon is vying for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate and her critics, Democrat and Republican, are raising questions about her company, its programming and treatment of talent past and present.

A formal response is in the hands of my editors at Hearst. However since I know other newspapers are reporting on this matter, I wanted to respond on my blog to Zimmerman, who wrote: “WWE welcomes any and all objective, qualified and independent scrutiny of its Talent Wellness Program, which is available in its entirety at the corporate website www.corporate.wwe.com. We invite the media to compare our program to any other steroid testing program currently in place. Until the Connecticut-based Hearst Newspapers do a thorough examination of the WWE’s Talent Wellness Program, we believe readers are paying for questionable journalism.”

A few points:

1. Agreed. My report was not a “thorough examination of WWE’s Talent Wellness Program.” Here’s what it WAS about … McMahon’s critics for months have been circulating a January, 2009 letter from U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman, D-California, one of the lawmakers who spearheaded the reviews of steroids in baseball. Waxman also reviewed WWE’s steroid policies following the high-profile, 2007 death of WWE wrestler Chris Benoit, found them lacking, and in his letter last year urged the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to investigate. I reported that ONDCP never took any action and lawmakers, including Waxman, failed to further pursue the matter. To this day Waxman’s office has not returned my calls requesting a reaction to the news ONDCP did not follow through on his request. I’ll argue it is responsible journalism when I’m handed a Congressional letter asking for an investigation and report that investigation never occurred.

2. Waxman issued his letter on Jan. 2, 2009. WWE has had over one year to, if the company so desired, craft a point-by-point rebuttal. And McMahon has been on the campaign trail since last September knowing full well that her critics would dredge up the issue of steroids and, in all likelihood, the Waxman letter. This is not an issue that suddenly popped up out of nowhere and completely caught WWE or the McMahon campaign off guard. If such a point-by-point rebuttal of Waxman’s concerns exists, none was provided for my story.

3. Waxman arrived at his conclusions not after reviewing the WWE’s wellness/steroids policies on its website, but after his bi-partisan staff held closed-door interviews with key WWE officials, including doctors overseeing the program, Linda McMahon, her husband Vince and daughter Stephanie. If WWE wants to make all of those same individuals available for one-on-one interviews with myself so they have the opportunity to thoroughly explain the facts and how Waxman got them wrong, as well as answer any other questions I might have, just name the time and the place. I’ll work around your far-busier-than-mine schedules. If WWE is arguing it is unfair for me to report about Waxman’s concerns without performing my own thorough review of the steroids program, the company needs to offer me the same opportunities as Waxman. Visiting the company’s website isn’t quite the same as sitting across the table from Vince McMahon.

4. Neither Zimmerman nor the McMahon campaign have accused me of this, but in case their supporters/fans believe I’m in the tank for the Democrats or former Congressman Rob Simmons, who is vying with McMahon for the GOP nod and tearing into the steroids issue, I’d urge them to read this.

Just got a press release from the state Department of Environmental Protection announcing three workshops, including one locally in Norwalk, to help operators of Connecticut’s hotels, motels, inns and bed & breakfasts go green.

Here are the details as provided by the DEP:

———————-

Workshops Scheduled to Help State’s Lodges

Go “Green” to Save Money and Build Business

Three workshops have been scheduled to help operators of Connecticut’s hotels, motels, inns and bed-and-breakfasts learn how to reduce operating costs and gain a marketing advantage by going “green.”

The workshops are sponsored by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism and Boston Green Tourism.  They are funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through a grant to Boston Green Tourism.

The topics at each session include:

• Energy Efficiency
• Water Use Reduction
• Waste Management
• How to Earn CT Green Hospitality Certification or Recertification

Each session will also feature a Connecticut hotelier speaking about their own experience with greening their property and operations.

The workshops are scheduled for:

Thursday, March 18, 2010

The Study at Yale, 9:00 a.m. – noon

New Haven, CT

(valet parking $7.00 per vehicle or street parking)

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Saybrook Point Inn and Spa, 9:00 a.m. – noon

Old Saybrook, CT

Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Maritime Aquarium, 9:00 a.m. – noon

Norwalk, CT

To register for the workshops, email Dan Ruben at dan_ruben@usa.net. Registration is $10, which is payable at the door.

These workshops will be followed by an advanced green training session for the lodging industry to be held this fall.

The workshops are a part of Connecticut’s efforts to foster a “green” lodging industry.

Last summer, DEP and Culture and Tourism announced a self certification program called “Connecticut Green Lodging.”  The program encourages and recognizes lodge owners who implement environmentally friendly practices, such as taking steps to conserve energy and water and using toxic free cleaning products.

For more information about the upcoming workshops, and other aspects of the Connecticut Green Lodging Certification Program, go to: www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?a=2708&q=438218&depNav_GID=1763

Greenwich Democrat Ned Lamont, who wants to be Connecticut’s next Governor, will be in Putnam at 11 a.m. Thursday to receive the endorsement of state Senate President Donald Williams (D-Brooklyn).

Isn’t Lamont running AGAINST the political establishment in Hartford?

UPDATE:

Here’s Williams’ statement:

“Ned has the experience, vision, and courage to hit the ground running on his first day as Governor. As a successful business owner, he’s got what it takes to bring stable, good-paying jobs back to the Quiet Corner and the rest of the state.  And he’s proven he is capable of bringing people together to get the best results for Connecticut families.  Ned built a thriving business from the ground up – he’s the one we need to generate economic expansion, create jobs and rebuild Connecticut.”

Hearst newspapers tonight on-line and tomorrow in print are carrying a report about former Republican Congressman Rob Simmons’ latest effort to undermine one opponent for the GOP nomination – professional wrestling’s Linda McMahon, whose family founded Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment.

Using as a launching point a story we published Sunday about the failure of federal officials in 2009 to follow-up on an investigation into the use of steroids in professional wrestling, Simmons’ Campaign Manager Jim Barnett sent an aggressive piece of campaign propoganda-disquised-as-a-letter to McMahon demanding she answer a variety of questions on the topic and about WWE.

McMahon has an obligation, according to Barnett/Simmons, to make sure all the dirty laundry – my phrase – is aired for Republicans to consider before they nominate her as their candidate and the Democratic-machine goes to war to defend the retiring U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd’s seat and their agenda in Congress.

Here’s the line in Barnett’s letter that best sums up the tactic.

“I also know you realize that the Democrats have a massive opposition research operation, are aware of all this information and more, and do have the financial resources to aggressively call these issues to the attention of voters,” Barnett wrote. “In fact, news reports have indicated that Democrats view your candidacy as key to their ‘salvation.’ Therefore, it’s vitally important that Republicans consider these obvious liabilities when they make their choice of who will represent them in November.”

McMahon is worth millions and is self-funding her campaign. She’s been flooding the air waves with radio ads and television ads and stuffing mailboxes of Republicans and non-Republicans with glossy campaign literature.

Simmons can’t compete with that, which is why Barnett is instead publicly raising the spectre of a fiercely competitive, well-funded Democratic Party running commercials featuring all the provocative information/images of McMahon and her family and their business they can get their hands on.

This was no letter to McMahon but a transparent plea to the Connecticut Republican Party. Simmons wants to plant a seed of doubt in the minds of Republicans who are leaning toward McMahon and fan the flames of doubt in other GOP loyalists that she is fresh, exciting, well-funded and unelectable.

Of course, this strategy relies on Republicans believing voters care enough about some of the controversies that have surrounded WWE that they will reject McMahon at the polls come November.

McMahon’s campaign, as expected, dismissed Simmons’ letter, arguing the issues are stale, already asked-and-adequately-answered and challenging Simmons to essentially “say it to her face” – something that did not happen during their first televised debate on Tuesday.

UPDATE:

Today (Thursday) Simmons personally wrote McMahon, rather than going through Barnett, asking the same questions posed Wednesday.

Here’s Simmons’ letter:

————————–

March 4, 2010

Mrs. Linda McMahon

Linda McMahon for Senate 2010

973 Farmington Avenue

West Hartford, CT 06127

Dear Mrs. McMahon,

I was surprised to hear your campaign object to my issuing you questions through a spokesman yesterday since it is a routine practice your campaign relies on daily, but I nonetheless welcome the invitation to submit them personally if it will help evoke answers.

I do regret that the debate Tuesday night offered no opportunity to discuss these important issues. I wish it did. But I look forward to a future engagement when we might discuss them for the benefit of the voters.

Now, you are running television ads financed by WWE profits touting your WWE experience. But to use your millions to boast of your record at WWE while dodging the tough questions about your record only lends further credence to suggestions, such as those issued last night by CNN, that you are trying to “buy” this election.

For someone touting themselves as an outsider, it seems highly political to try and have it both ways regarding your sole credential for office – touting it via expensive, saturation television ads and glossy mail funded by the profits you earned, but refusing to personally address the troubling aspects of your career.

I hope these questions begin to give you an opportunity to address all aspects of your record, not just those that make for nice television ads. I look forward to your responses to these critically important questions.

Sincerely,

Rob Simmons

Agree or disagree with Republican U.S. Senate candidate/celebrity economist Peter Schiff’s views, you’ve got to give the guy credit for not getting touchy-feely when asked during tonight’s televised debate about ending partisan gridlock in Washington D.C.

“A lot of people say we need bi-partisanship,” Schiff began. “I don’t want to overcome gridlock if that’s the only thing standing between us and more government. I don’t want to go to Washington to compromise my positions or principles. I want to persuade and educate other members of Congress to adopt my principles … We’ve been compromising for years and look at the mess we’re in.”

You just know he wanted to yell “I’ll throw bi-partisanship over my knee and make it squeal like a whiny baby!!!” but decided that was not appropriate for live television.

Another notable Schiff quote, referring to whether the federal government and Democratic President Barack Obama should pass another stimulus bill: “It’s not a second stimulus. It’s a third stimulus. The first one was under (Republican President) George Bush.”

You have to wonder if Schiff will wage a primary or run as a third-party candidate should he not emerge victorious from the GOP nominating convention in May.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate/former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon, 61, pledged during tonight’s televised GOP debate to impose term limits on herself if elected.

“I would not serve more than two (six year) terms in the United States Senate,” said McMahon, who is running as an outsider looking to shake-up a Congress filled with career politicians.

UPDATE: Checked in with the McMahon campaign to find out if she has pledged before, publicly, to only serve two terms.

I’m told she has made the statement to Republican Town Committees and possibly on a live radio interview a few weeks ago and during one editorial board with a newspaper.

I suspect after tonight it’s going to get a lot more attention. And as someone running against “Washington insiders” it’s a smart move.