McMahon, Shays Trade Barbs In Debate

From AP:

The two front-runners for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate from Connecticut clashed in a debate Sunday, attacking one another over who is more capable of leading their party to victory in a solidly Democratic state.

Former wresting executive Linda McMahon and former U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays shared a stage with three other contenders, but they focused primarily on each other in their first televised debate. They sparred over whose GOP credentials are stronger, who can win in November and who could best help strengthen the U.S. economy.

Shays, of Bridgeport, said he knows how to win an election. He criticized McMahon for spending $50 million of her own money on the 2010 Senate campaign, in which she won the GOP nomination before losing to Democrat Richard Blumenthal.

“We know Mrs. McMahon isn’t a fiscal conservative because she wouldn’t have spent $50 million so recklessly. She’s not a social conservative because she wouldn’t run the business she’s in,” Shays said.

McMahon, of Greenwich, attacked Shays for votes he cast with Democrats during his years in the U.S. House, including measure to raise the U.S. debt ceiling. The former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, now called WWE, also defended her spending in the last race.

“Congressman Shays, you said I spent $50 million of my own money. That’s true, I earned it,” McMahon said before criticizing Shays for voting for the so-called Bridge to Nowhere for more than $200 million in Alaska. “I don’t think that’s conservative principles.”

At one point, Shays said McMahon sounded more like a Democrat than a Republican in discussing a tax proposal to benefit the middle class.

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