Tag: linda mcmahon

CT-SEN race down to the wire…

…Patrick Murphy just can’t seem to shake Linda McMahon.  Be a real shame if Obama’s attacks on the Navy last night had an effect on this race, huh? – I mean, CT is probably not going to go GOP, but even a couple points off of Obama’s total would be devastating to Murphy.

Moe Lane

PS: Oh, right, we have the occasional lurker.  For the benefit of progressives and other natsec ignoramuses, the Navy has a strong presence in CT.  Thanks for having Obama turn their readiness worries into a sneer last night!

#rsrh Politico: worried about DOOM in CT-SEN?

Politico ain’t too happy about it – yeah, I’m broken up about that, too – but Linda McMahon seems to be making it a race over in CT-SEN.  I particularly enjoyed this bit from Joe Lieberman:

Even retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said Murphy has a ways to go to catch up with McMahon. Lieberman, who is staying neutral in the race, cited McMahon’s effective campaigning and the state’s independent streak. More than two in five voters is registered as unaffiliated.

“It looks like a closer race than most people would have guessed … She’s smart, capable. And what can I say, but she’s obviously getting her message across better this time. Also, to be fair, Dick Blumenthal was a very formidable candidate,” Lieberman told POLITICO.

Continue reading #rsrh Politico: worried about DOOM in CT-SEN?

The downticket implications of Obama losing the suburbs.

Spoiler warning: ‘mixed.’

Michael Barone has taken a look at two non-battleground states – New Jersey and Connecticut – and sees something interesting:

In three recent polls in heavily affluent suburban Connecticut, Obama leads Romney by only 52%-43%. He carried the state 61%-38%. Obama is running 9% behind his 2008 percentage; his 23% margin is now 9%. Polling in New Jersey, also heavily affluent suburban, is averaging 50%-40%, down from Obama’s 57%-42% in 2008. Neither state is a target state (though south Jersey gets Philadelphia TV, with any Pennsylvania-targeted ads) or likely to be one on these numbers. But if the apparent CT and NJ trends are happening in affluent suburbs in target states, assumptions based on 2008 benchmarks could prove to be unjustified.

Barone goes on to note a what he (and I) consider to be too-good-to-be-true poll of Cook County, IL; but even if Cook County is not in play it still remains unlikely that Obama will make his 2008 numbers there, either, which is largely Michael Barone’s point.  But let’s go back to CT & NJ for a moment. Specifically, the Senate races in both. Continue reading The downticket implications of Obama losing the suburbs.

CT-SEN race looking better and better for Linda McMahon (R CAND).

What in blazes is going on in Connecticut? Quinnipac polled the McMahon/Murphy CT-SEN race, and it found the same results for that race as did Rasmussen: 49/46 for the GOP candidate.  The Q-poll is also showing Obama over Romney… by seven points, which as Hot Air notes is actually awful news for the President; he should be up by double digits there.  All in all: this is not yet an upset situation… but it is becoming a bit evocative of the Johnson/Feingold WI-SEN race in 2010.

Or it could just be another state moving away from the Red State / Blue State metaphor that we’ve all been using since the 2000 election.  It’s easy to forget that as recently as 2006 Connecticut was a state which voted Democratic in Presidential elections, but was more than happy to elect Republicans to other offices; in that year Republicans held the governorship, and the majority of the state’s Congressional Districts.  Admittedly, most of those Republicans were what has been diplomatically called Northeastern Republicans, which is a term of art that covers a good amount of intra-party awkwardness; but a seat is a seat*, and rebuilding the GOP in New England will pay dividends down the line. Continue reading CT-SEN race looking better and better for Linda McMahon (R CAND).

Dick Blumenthal lying about death penalty stance.

The death penalty has been an issue in the recent Connecticut gubernatorial election, and it seems to have spilled over into the Senatorial election, too – mostly because Dick Blumenthal can’t be bothered to remember if he started loving the death penalty in 1990, or in 2005. Then again, knowing Blumenthal… he probably decided that he could claim both and get away with it. It’s a habit with the man.

Below is a sort of timeline, sort of collected quotes that will demonstrate that… well, that Dick Blumenthal lies through his teeth. It’s pretty straightforward, but here’s the executive summary: Blumenthal claimed that he’s been for the death penalty since he first ran for Attorney General, the historical record contradicts that assertation handily, and it’s plausible to assume that Blumenthal’s conversion on the issue had to do with the political benefits from executing a notorious Connecticut serial killer. That last part’s speculative, which is why I write ‘plausible.’

Last note: some of these quotes and excerpts were made available to me. I’ve provided online sources where I could.

Part I: Blumenthal’s shifting narrative.

1990 is, obviously, twenty years ago. But let’s keep going with this: Continue reading Dick Blumenthal lying about death penalty stance.

Dick Blumenthal’s Countrywide problem.

Jerry Brown’s, too.

It’s not often that you’ll see a conservative site link approvingly to a Nation article, but these are odd days.  The executive summary: in 2008 Countrywide Financial/Bank of America – yes, the same Countrywide that gave sweetheart loans to Senator Dodd of Connecticut, who completely non-coincidentally decided not to run for re-election this year – entered into a 8.6 billion dollar settlement with those of its borrowers currently in financial trouble.  The Nation has a variety of opinions – generally unfavorable, to put it mildly – on how well that settlement is working; but the part of the article that should really be drilled down from our point of view is the bit about how this is all being paid for.  You see, in that announcement Blumenthal indicated “This settlement will cost BofA as much as $8.6 billion, but no cost, not a dime, to taxpayers.”

The Nation calls that a flat lie: Continue reading Dick Blumenthal’s Countrywide problem.

Paging Linda McMahon (R CAND, CT-SEN)…

Ace looks upon this video, and declares it the raw material for Linda’s next campaign ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRSpQ1ud9R0

…and I heartily agree. For those without video access, it’s from a primary debate between Dick Blumenthal and Merrik Alpert. Alpert pointed out, in so many words, that under Dick’s tenure as Attorney General Connecticut was one of two states* to have a net loss of jobs. And then Alpert proceeded to ask Dick how many jobs his lawsuits created. Dick’s response was that his lawsuits created jobs because businesses love competition.

No, really, that’s what he said. Presumably, Dick’s argument is if he hadn’t done all those lawsuits then Connecticut would have lost even more jobs. Or that it was only through Dick’s regular sacrifices of marmosets to the Great Pumpkin every Roodmass that Connecticut has so far not been swept out to sea by a vengeful tsunami.

Look, it makes just as much sense as Dick’s actual answer, OK?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Linda McMahon for Senate.

*Hi, Governor Jennifer Granholm! Thanks for giving us Michigan! Rick Snyder for Governor!

The Inexorable McMahon Job-Creation Ad.

If you missed Dick Blumenthal’s incredibly clueless answer to Linda McMahon’s simple question “How do you create a job?” at the last debate, don’t worry: the McMahon campaign has had boiled it down to a television ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovIBLQyl7HE&feature=player_embedded

And in the process they managed to do what was I would have thought would be the impossible; they managed to cram two minutes of idiocy into a thirty second clip. Including Blumenthal’s rictus grin; as God is my witness, when I watched that originally I fully expected Dick to end his ‘response’ with the happy declaration that he had just done a Number Two in his pants. Continue reading The Inexorable McMahon Job-Creation Ad.

So, DSCC: which candidate will you abandon…

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

…to firewall Connecticut?

Propelled by Connecticut likely voters who say they are “angry” with government, former wrestling executive Linda McMahon, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate, is closing in on Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Democrat, and now trails just 49 – 46 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 51 – 45 percent Blumenthal lead in a September 14 likely voter survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll, conducted by live interviewers.

Personally, if I were still a Democrat I would recommend Kentucky and Missouri – actually, if I were still a Democrat I would recommend Nevada, but Reid’s still too powerful in his caucus to make that feasible. Of the other Republican-held Senate seats, New Hampshire’s probably not been dedicated enough money anyway, everybody knows that Ohio’s a lost cause, and the Democrats don’t dare dump Meek in Florida at this point.  This is not the year for Democratic gains.  Which is fine by me: the Democrats do not deserve gains.

One last note: isn’t it just hysterical that it’s the Democratic party that needs to make hard financial choices in the homestretch?  This is why I stopped looking at the cash-on-hand totals; it became irrelevant once it became clear that the Republicans would have enough money to fight on the battlefields of our choosing and that the Democrats wouldn’t have enough money to defend everywhere simultaneously.

Linda McMahon for Senate.

Moe Lane (Crosspost)

PS: The Democrats should also decide whether they’d rather risk losing Connecticut, or Delaware.

Rasmussen: McMahon (R CAND, CT-SEN) within five.

Not quite inside MoE, but we’ve got a month to go.  Rasmussen gives the numbers as being 50/45 Blumenthal/McMahon: as a look at the polls over the last few months show , this race has been steadily tightening since Linda McMahon was nominated.  Which is probably why Bill Clinton had to stump for Blumenthal ; the DSCC was and is not prepared to spend large sums of money on this race, and it shows.  They’re also pretty clearly not prepared to handle the specter of an actual contest in Connecticut, and that also shows.  You know, you hear a lot of criticism directed at the NRSC’s recruitment policy, and some of those criticism is justified, and some of it is not.  But what you don’t hear is much criticism of the DSCC’s recruitment policy… and, frankly, they’ve been awful this cycle, even though they have the advantage of playing largely a defensive game.  Blumenthal represents one of their better gets, and he’s been hemorrhaging support all summer.

Well, maybe Quinnipiac’s poll tomorrow will give the Democrats better news.  Then again, maybe it won’t.

Moe Lane (Crosspost)

PS: There’s a debate scheduled for October 4th between Linda and Blumenthal; at this rate, the latter may be wishing that he had agreed to an earlier one…