Linda McMahon Enters Connecticut Senate Race

Linda McMahon Enters Connecticut Senate Race

By Caitlin Huey-Burns - September 20, 2011


Former World Wresting Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon officially announced her second bid for the U.S. Senate Tuesday.

Standing on the floor of the Coil Pro factory in Southington, Conn., which manufactures custom coil processing machines, the Republican announced her candidacy for the seat being vacated by Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman, who is retiring after four terms.

"I'm a proven job creator, and today I am a candidate for the United States Senate," said McMahon. "As your senator, I will go to Washington with one objective above all: to get our state and country working again."

McMahon praised Coil Pro, a company that started with one employee a dozen years ago and has now grown to employ 10 and occupy 18,000 square feet.

“Like thousands of small businesses across Connecticut, Coil Pro is the lifeblood of our economy,” she said. She then attempted to appeal to middle-class state residents, describing the days she and her husband lived without health insurance and filed for bankruptcy as they tried to get the business they founded 25 years ago, WWE, up and running. “You may not believe it, but I know what our families are trying to do to survive every day. I’ve been there and you never forget,” she said.

In 2010, McMahon won a three-way primary to score the Republican nod for U.S. Senate. She spent $50 million of her own money on her campaign but ultimately lost to Democrat Richard Blumenthal in the general election by 12 points.

In her 2012 campaign rollout speech on Tuesday, McMahon positioned herself as she did in 2010: as a businesswoman who can go to Washington -- where “they agree we’re in a debt crisis, but they just keep on spending. They talk about protecting Social Security and Medicare, then they do exactly nothing" -- and get things done.

In an interview with RealClearPolitics Tuesday after launching her bid, McMahon said she is running again for the Senate because the economy hasn't turned around since her first try for office.

"We’re not even in the same place we were two years ago; we’re worse off," she said. "The messaging I had throughout that campaign [in 2010] about jobs and the economy is even more true today than it was then. I’m certainly as, if not more, committed to this campaign because I’ve not seen any changes."

McMahon will unveil a jobs plan in the coming weeks. After President Obama revealed his own jobs plan earlier this month, McMahon said in a Facebook posting that she felt "encouraged" by the president's speech. Though the proposal wasn't perfect -- McMahon insisted that it not incur additional debt -- "it contains positive actions that we can all agree on," she wrote.

McMahon, though, disagrees with the president’s proposed tax increases on the wealthy, which he unveiled Monday. While she supports tax reform, “I do believe that we should not raise taxes during the recession,” she said. (Technically, the recession ended in mid-2009, though there are concerns of a “double dip.”) 

McMahon told RCP several of the elements proposed by Obama were present in her 2010 jobs plan, including streamlining regulations and having a temporary payroll tax reduction -- though her payroll tax cut was intended for employers and not the employee. "There’s a lot of things on his jobs plan that I could agree with because they’re clearly elements I had in mind," she said. But, she cautioned about the Obama proposal, "I don’t think it’s as much a jobs plan as it is a suggestion for different elements to try, and I think we have to have a more complete, thorough, strategic plan from Congress so we can get our country back on track."

McMahon contends she is capable of putting forth a viable plan to improve the nation's unemployment, which currently hovers above 9 percent. There aren't enough lawmakers in Congress, she told RCP, who, like her, "know how business people think and what incentivizes you and how to be incentivized."

While her message and narrative remains largely the same, her campaign insists McMahon will have a revamped organization. She will work on cultivating grass-roots support, meeting with small groups and getting to know voters more intimately. Her campaign will have a more robust fundraising unit and she will raise money from supporters instead of completely self-financing, having learned how much small financial contributions matter and that there's negativity associated with the self-funder label.

"It was decided that we would have fundraising this time because we want to bring in as many people as possible to be involved and invested in the campaign and I will reach out to them to do that," McMahon told RCP. "We still won’t take PAC money, but we will let individuals contribute to the maximum amount."

Still, Democrats were quick to slap the self-funder label back onto McMahon ahead of her Tuesday announcement. “Linda McMahon tried to buy the election last year with more than $50 million of attacks and negative campaigning,” said Matter Canter, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who described McMahon as a “greedy CEO . . . who made her fortune by putting her own profits before the health and safety of her workers and marketing sex and violence to children. Nothing has changed about McMahon since voters resoundingly rejected her candidacy last year and she shouldn’t be surprised when it happens again this time around.” The Connecticut Democratic Party released a similar statement.

Democrats have the early advantage in the traditionally blue state in a presidential year. President Obama won Connecticut by 23 points in 2008. Former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz and three-term Rep. Christopher Murphy are competing for the Democratic nomination.

McMahon is likely to face former 10-term Rep. Chris Shays in the Republican primary. Shays, a moderate defeated in 2008 by now-Rep. Jim Himes, is poised to enter the race soon. McMahon led Shays by 15 points in a Quinnipiac University poll released last week.

Caitlin Huey-Burns is a reporter for RealClearPolitics. She can be reached at chueyburns@realclearpolitics.com.

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