As Shays Smiles, WWE Response Undercuts McMahon

Vince and Linda McMahon
Vince, tell them to stop talking about the wrestlers!

Every time operatives for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon respond to her primary opponent Chris Shays filleting her for peddling porn and body bags during her association with wrestling giant WWE, they’re doing the former congressman a favor. He’ll take that give and take any day. All it does is bolster his argument questioning her electability in a general election. Just think what the Democrats will do to her, as they did in 2010 if she becomes the party nominee? Shays operatives will assert to peel away Republicans from McMahon.

Shays, who has a home in Black Rock, will make his formal announcement for the United States Senate noon Wednesday at the Old State House in Hartford.

Chris Shays
Why is Chris Shays smiling? Just mention the WWE.

McMahon’s campaign operation is working overtime to schmooze female electors who overwhelmingly supported Dick Blumenthal in 2010. It’s a weakness they must overcome to have a shot at winning a general election. Shays is counting on not letting her get to a general election. Shays has gone back to what he did best–serving as a federal budget hawk–before the Iraq war, imploding economy and Barack Obama on the ballot in 2008 ended his representation of Connecticut’s 4th Congressional District after 20 years.

On Tuesday the WWE sent Shays a letter and copied media outlets taking him to task for “factual inaccuracies you stated regarding WWE in recent interviews with the Connecticut Post and Associated Press.”

“Let’s think about it,” Shays told the Greenwich Times about McMahon. “She’s got over 41 people 50 years and younger who’ve died in her jobs. That’s quite a job record that she’s created.”

In the letter to Shays WWE spokesman Robert Zimmerman asserts: “One death in any industry is too many. However, since the formation of the company in 1982, five wrestlers have passed away while under contract. According to coroner reports, one individual died by accident, one by suicide and three by heart disease.”

The figure, however, does not include the many others who died after they were no longer under contract, as a result of WWE working conditions. Several high-profile former WWE wrestlers have frothed at McMahon touting job growth at the WWE, a creation of marketing wizard Vince McMahon, Linda’s husband. Linda McMahon served as company chief executive until her departure in 2010 to run for U.S. Senate.

As the election season heads toward party endorsements in May, and an August primary, McMahon by virtue of her early spending power and high visibility will likely hold polling leads among Republicans over Shays. But primaries are weird ducks that can show dramatic voter movement within a matter of weeks as electors focus on the candidate and message. Shays will keep up the heat: “She can’t win a general election. I’ve won 10.”

Meanwhile the Democrats are sorting out their own nominee, among them Congressman Chris Murphy, former Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, State Rep. William Tong and drug-reform crusader Sylvester Salcedo.

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4 comments

  1. Somebody should have kicked her in that broad ass of hers for spending $50,000,000 last time. I can’t imagine the family coffers being able to take another $50,000,000 hit for nothing again.

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  2. Go Shays! Shays needs to pay closer attention to the 5th Congressional District. This is where the McMahon camp is working hard to gain the upper hand. Shays needs a broad platform and needs to sell it to Connecticut residents. Talking about the WWE isn’t going to cut it. Like Lennie Grimaldi, McMahon has MO. Money and Operation, but she falls short on Message. Lennie always has a message.
    Shays needs to give up being that polite nice guy. He needs to go in the ring and beat up everyone lined up to run and any others who are contemplating entering the ring. His campaign has to get serious on all issues and not come out looking like WWE-choreographed fights. The issues all Americans are real and candidates for political office must show the voters they are real and be for real when elected. The reason this country is so politically divided is because the electorate is having a difficult time separating the real ones from the fake ones.
    www .youtube.com/watch?v=lsfSRthNxt4

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  3. Shays was surprised he lost the last election, after the big mandate for change with the Obama vote. However, now that most agree change didn’t happen and Obama failed, Shays could have another chance. Even though Himes has a busy community calendar, he still voted to extend tax cuts for the rich while poverty is increasing here: 31% of Bridgeport children (11,245 children) lived in poverty last year, compared to 26% the year before.

    And sure Himes had a nice press conference in front of the Congress Street Bridge, but the bridge never got replaced. Roads and bridges are bad. Trains daily have rain dripping on seats from holes, our country is in dire need of improvements. On education, 2 out of 3 kids in schools are dropouts. And two thirds of city budget spending is from education and security. What do we get? Where is the leadership?

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