A day after Rob Simmons attacked Linda McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment, the company she helped build and once led, for insensitivity toward people with mental disabilities, the McMahon campaign fought back.
The issue bubbled to the surface of an already acrimonious campaign between Simmons and McMahon, both Republicans running for U.S. Senate, after White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel used a derogatory word for people with learning disabilities.
That prompted the Simmons camp to circulate a couple of YouTube videos showing a WWE storyline that featured Eugene, a character with a mental impairment, being humiliated in the ring.
“Rob Simmons indicates once again that he doesn’t understand how to separate fact from fiction,” Ed Patru, a spokesman for the McMahon campaign, said in a statement. “In the soap opera world of WWE, the character ‘Eugene’ was developmentally disabled, but rather than the beaten down, pathetic character that Rob presents, Eugene was treated via scripting like all WWE superstars with no special privileges. He competed in the ring or in a steel cage, sometimes winning, but often losing as an underdog. In the end, in spite of any disability, he was victorious and became a hero.
“Rather than a pathetic character, he was inspirational.”
“It was through WWE’s work with the Special Olympics since 1986 that Linda understands that these special athletes don’t want preferential treatment. They just want a chance to succeed. Eugene proved to them that they could.
“Rob just seems to love those YouTube videos, which are taken out of context and don’t tell the whole soap opera story line.
“Linda, however, will continue to focus on the real life issues of jobs, soaring debt, tax increases, and runaway spending, and she will fight job-killing legislation like Cap and Trade and Card Check, both of which Simmons cosponsored as a Congressman.”