Linda McMahon for Senate catch-all thread

[kjh]

"I've worked and been in a business that is very testosterone loaded." Um...

[Ditch]

The tight race in Mass is just the thing to make both GOP candidates think they stand a chance when they actually don't, since they'll be up against a GOOD opponent instead of an actively horrible one.

[Bix]

kjh & myself vs a Hartford Courant political cartoonist.

[Bob Morris]

Keith just took that cartoonist to school... not that you didn't get in a good blow, Bix, but Keith's post summed up just how ignorant many in the media regarding what really goes on in the pro wrestling world.

[Al]

It's a political cartoon. It's a bit much to demand that they zero in on the most scathing criticisms of WWE, isn't it? The general point is that Linda McMahon is CEO of a shady company, and the cartoon got that point across.

[Bix]

It's a political cartoon. It's a bit much to demand that they zero in on the most scathing criticisms of WWE, isn't it? The general point is that Linda McMahon is CEO of a shady company, and the cartoon got that point across.

Seriously?

 

First of all, there were several paragraphs under the cartoon. That was what we were talking about.

 

Second, when Keith pointed out that the drug/death stuff was a lot more important than the content issues, the author called him a WWE shill.

[artDDP]

Meanwhile the press at large has no problem with Borat or Bruno because they parody their impressions of right-wing tea partiers. If plot lines similar to WWE were featured on critically acclaimed fare such as The Office or Community there would be no venom because they can feel smart watching those shows.

[Bix]

Well, not the plotlines that she's getting skewered for (making fun of the mentally disabled, necrophilia, etc).

[sek69]

It's a political cartoon. It's a bit much to demand that they zero in on the most scathing criticisms of WWE, isn't it? The general point is that Linda McMahon is CEO of a shady company, and the cartoon got that point across.

 

It was just a lazy way of bashing Linda, being all "lol, wrestling lady" misses the entire point of why she'd be a horrible choice to be an elected member of Congress.

 

Hell, you could have really cut to the meat of the matter if someone would just ask her "would you recuse yourself the next time your husband gets called to testify before Congress to explain why so many of his employees die?"

[kjh]

Yeah, I really didn't have a problem with the cartoon itself (though the inappropriate content for kids is probably the laziest thing you can lampoon Linda for). But his column was pure fantasy based out of ignorance. There are plenty of good reasons to bash Linda McMahon for, the myth that the McMahons destroyed wrestling’s innocence is not one of them.

[Dan]

I remember Bill Maher once said something to the effect of: "I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but I think the way they keep the voters dumb is to have media that informs them to be even dumber."

[kjh]

Over at the Hartford Courant, I brought up the blatant hypocrisy of Linda McMahon positioning herself as a businesswoman who knows how to create jobs in tough economic times when WWE cut 10% of its workforce last year. But it gets better, as Dave Meltzer reported in this week's Observer that WWE got a tax break of $8.3 million through Barack Obama's stimulus package.

[Bob Morris]

Some fact checking of the Linda McMahon for Senate campaign.

 

To be fair, though, Linda's campaign isn't the only political campaign that distorts stuff.

[Dan]

(CNN) – A new poll suggests that big bucks are helping a former professional wrestling executive surge to the top in the battle for the Republican Senate nomination in Connecticut.

 

According to a Quinnipiac University survey of Connecticut voters released Wednesday morning, Linda McMahon leads former Rep. Rob Simmons 44 to 34 percent in the GOP primary matchup, with businessman Peter Schiff at 9 percent and 12 percent undecided. McMahon's 10 point lead is a dramatic swing from a 10 point deficit in a Quinnipiac poll conducted two months ago.

 

"What explains Linda McMahon's rise in the polls? Money. She is the only Senate candidate on TV right now. She quickly has become as well-known and well-liked among Republicans as the former frontrunner for the Republican nomination, three-term Congressman Rob Simmons," says Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz.

 

"We are very encouraged by the results of this poll. We have said for months that the momentum behind Linda's candidacy is real and undeniable," says McMahon campaign spokesman Ed Patru. "This poll confirms what we are seeing in our own internal polls: Linda's standing against Rob Simmons continues to improve month by month, and Republicans are excited about Linda being their nominee against Dick Blumenthal this fall."

[sek69]

It would be hilarious on so many levels if the media's refusal to pay any attention to pro wrestling (and in turn their failure to mention any of the issues) led to Linda getting elected.

[Ditch]

Movement relative to Blumenthal is what matters, not Simmons.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

http://deadspin.com/5495992/wwe-bans-chair...hons-senate-run

[kjh]

Yeah, I posted a similar story on Cage Side Seats last night : The Connecticut media wakes up to WWE's hypocrisy on the concussion issue, but it's about more than just chair shots to the head.

[Bob Morris]

From the 3/19 F4W.com update:

 

The Simmons for Senate people sent out a mailer today reminding people that Vince and Linda do, in fact, own a yacht named THE SEXY BITCH.

[jdw]

This is why I said way back in the thread (and in other places) that the DC of CT shouldn't waste money and resources slogging Linda. The GOP opponents would do it for them if she ever looked like a threat. Let them damage her even if she got through, then spend the money in the General. Plus, at the time, they needed the money to rehap Dodd. Now with Blumenthal, there isn't any need to rehab.

 

She will get beaten by a wide margin in the General.

 

John

[Ronnie]

Simmons has now gone after the premature-death issue.

 

His people have put a

based on wrestlers who performed at Wrestlemania VII dying before the age of 50. They intersperse with clips of Linda stating that the health and welfare of the wrestlers is the company's number-one priority, and counter with the fact that she cancelled the original testing policy in 1996, only reinstating an amended version a decade later, following the death of a high-profile performer.

 

The video quality is very poor and doesn't provide any reason to vote for Simmons (since not a single one of his issues is presented, and the sudden concern for wrestlers' health seems rather too politically convenient), but it certainly makes Linda look worse than she would have done before. The gloves are off.

 

Edit: 40 edited to 50. Thanks, John.

[jdw]

dying before the age of 40.

50

 

The video isn't too bad given they couldn't use WWE footage. In a way, the out-of-the ring pictures (like the ones of Davey Boy and especially Hawk) make them look more "human" and less like wrestling cartoon characters who can be ignored.

 

John

[El-P]

Hum.... Exploiting wrestlers death for a political campaign. Now that's something new.

[rovert]

http://benoitbook.blogspot.com/2010/04/did...ustice-1st.html

 

Eep

[Ronnie]

I can understand why someone like McMahon would tell big lies.

 

I cannot fathom why she would tell pointless lies that are easily verifiable, when the truth would do no harm at all. Has she absorbed some of pro-wrestling's culture of embellishing everything?

 

Meltzer reports in the lastest WON about this hammering she got from the Hartford Courant's John Lender on 4/4.

 

But what really makes me want to take a step back and shake my head at the unbelievability of bullshitting is this quote from Meltzer:

 

The article also brought up something that had come up in the past, in January 2009, when in the same questionnaire when talking about her background, she claimed a bachelor’s degree in education from East Carolina University in 1969. However, she received no such degree, as East Carolina University records showed her degree was in French.

That absolutely beggars belief to me. What's the supposed payoff that justifies running the risk of being exposed as a liar in that case?