Author: Daniela Altimari

The campaign of Rob Simmons, one of Linda McMahon’s Republican rivals, found her campaign literature targeting women voters somewhat ironic in light of World Wrestling Entertainment skits such as this.

“There may be individuals who find this entertaining, but is there anyone who upon witnessing this increasingly vile and troubling programming still believes that the person who produced, profited from, and defends it should be our representative in the U.S. Senate?” Simmons spokesman Raj Shah said in an email.

Simmons sent out an email reminding reporters of another side of former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO McMahon’s record regarding women.

“Common images and themes portrayed on WWE programs include extreme violence without the expected negative consequences occurring, a lack of morality (the bad guy wins), racist stereotypes, sexism, use of sex, the degradation of women (women are referred to as bitches, whores [Hos], and sluts), extreme verbal intimidation and abuse, and beer consumption. omen wrestlers and nonwrestler women are victims of severe violence from men and are also the perpetrators of violence,” according to a study published by the Southern Medical Journal in February, 2008, and cited the Simmons’ campaign. “A common theme is that violence against women by men is morally acceptable.”

Soccer Moms, Security Moms — whatever you call this year’s trendy category of swing voters — one thing is clear: Linda McMahon is courting them.

The Republican running for U.S. Senate just sent out a glossy campaign mailer featuring eight women, among a total of 12 voters photographed.

McMahon’s focus groups must be telling her that women will make the difference in the U.S. Senate race, where she is the only female running on either ticket.

Rick Green got the mailer and has some pics.

From the ashes of Connecticut Local Politics comes a new blog, Connecticut Political Reporter. Many CTLP regulars are finding a new home here.   

No one knows what the paper has, but apparently it could be enough to prompt the already beleaguered governor’s resignation. Gawker has some salacious speculation.

While conservative activists from around the nation were meeting at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville this weekend, local tea party adherents gathered in a meeting room at a Southington motel to quiz Rob Simmons, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

Back in July, attorney Robert Fiske III of West Hartford, who works in Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s office, contributed $500 to the U.S. Senate campaign of Republican Peter Schiff. 

Now Blumenthal is a candidate for U.S. Senate himself. We’re wondering if that that makes for some awkward moments around the watercooler in the AG’s office.

his book tour stops at the Borders in Farmington on Sat., March 27, two days after a similar appearance at the Stamford Borders.

Muchnick is the author of “Wrestling Babylon: Piledriving Tales of Drugs, Sex, Death, and Scandal” and “Chris & Nancy,” which details the murder-suicide of pro wrestler Chris Benoit and his wife.

The ugly spat over World Wrestling Entertainment’s infamous Eugene storyline continues to play out between Republican U.S. Senate candidates Linda McMahon, former WWE CEO, and Rob Simmons.

It all came to the surface after the Wall Street Journal reported that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel used a disparaging term for people with developmental disabilities.

While Sarah Palin was expressing outrage at Emanuel’s comments and Emanuel was signing a pledge never to use the word “retarded’ again, the Simmons campaign was trawling the YouTube library of WWE clips. They found several examples of a mentally challenged character named Eugene being humilated in the ring (including this one featuring Vince McMahon, husband of Linda.)

This morning, Linda McMahon defended the Eugene plot as evidence of just how far people with disabilities have come.

Now the Simmons camp is responding.

“It is deeply troubling that Linda McMahon views her depiction of a developmentally disabled person being beaten, taunted, and mocked as ‘inspiring’ entertainment she is proud of,” Simmons spokesman Raj Shah says in a press release issued this afternoon. “And her outlandish claim that the scripting of such a ‘soap opera’ was actually a benevolent statement about equality is absurd.”

“The truth is, Linda saw a profitable opportunity to play off humanity’s worst instincts, and likely the only thing that was ‘inspired’ by it was the furthering of cruel and humiliating stereotypes,” Shah continued. “One can only hope it didn’t inspire real beatings by impressionable children McMahon markets to.  This is a shameful display for which she should be apologizing, not defending.”

Meanwhile, other McMahon critics are weighing in as well. Irv Muchnick, the author/blogger and one-man McMahon attack machine, says the entire controversy shows that McMahon “can run from her WWE past, whose mega-profits are underwriting her $50 million campaign — but she can’t hide.”

James Caldwell of PW Torch says degrading skits about mentally disabled folks is not the main issue McMahon ought to answer for.

“[T]his is maybe #5 on important issues McMahon needs to be held accountable for from her time as WWE CEO. #1 is the record of occupational health issues in WWE and pro wrestling with an industry-wide epidemic of wrestlers dying young, steroid abuse, pain pill addiction, independent contractor status when wrestlers are treated like employees, no formal regulatory body protecting wrestlers, and no regularly-scheduled off-season,” Caldwell writes. 
  

Of the $1,432,752 contributed by individuals to Republican Peter Schiff’s U.S. Senate bid in 2009, the overwhelming majority came from folks who live outside the state.

In fact, Schiff received donations from only about 70 Connecticut residents. That’s a better than the five denizens of the Nutmeg State who donated to Chris Dodd’s campaign in the first four months of 2009 (Dodd has, of course, since left the race, largely due to eroding support from the citizens of this state.)

And the fact that Schiff drew most of his money from Texas, California and New York isn’t surprising, considering the broker, pundit and author from Weston has a national following, thanks to his frequent TV appearances.

“It shows that this is a huge movement which is national,” said Len Greene Jr., the campaign’s political director. “The economic issues of the day demand a different type of politician…Obviously his following started out nationwide. The local following will come as we progress through the campaign.”

Schiff has tapped that national network of support by launching several “money bombs,” one-day online fundraising blitzes.

Whether they live in Cos Cob or Chicago, many of Schiff’s donors work in the financial industry. But he also received contributions from an auto repair technician from South Windsor, a student from Fairfield, a naval officer from New London and a waiter from West Hartford.

Schiff’s end-of-the-year filing with the Federal Election Committee also shows that he lent his campaign $50,000.

He spent $398,369 on campaign expenses in 2009, with most of that money going to consultants, web designers and polling.

Schiff’s filing indicates that he relied exclusively on consultants and freelancers — as opposed to paid staff — in 2009. Because of that, he did not pay employment taxes or contribute to  health insurance costs for those working on the campaign.

But that was before the campaign had set up a payroll service, Greene said. Schiff now has four staffers on the payroll, including Greene.

However the campaign is still not providing health care coverage, Greene confirmed. “That was just a policy decision that was made.”

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.”

A group of western Connecticut activists has registered the name “CT Tea Party” with the Secretary of the State’s office. Registering is the first step toward becoming a political party in the state.

The group’s goal: “To ensure that the Democratic and Republican caucuses are prepared to put forth candidates that are ready to go to to work for the people, and not continue the status quo that’s caused the problems both locally and at the state and federal levels,” said Dan Gaita of Bethel, the party’s chairman.

Tanya Bachand, leader of the Connecticut Tea Party Patriots, said she had no idea that Gaita’s group was planning to register the name as a political party and learned of it only after the fact. Initially, Bachand was concerned: In Florida and elsewhere around the nation, activists have clashed over the right to use the tea party name.

Moreover, tea party activists portray themselves as a grassroots conservative movement, one where mistrust of political parties runs deep.

But after talking with Gaita, Bachand said she was reassured that his conservative credentials are in order. “We welcome them into the fold,” she said. 

Still, Bachand’s not quite ready to embrace the strategy of turning the tea party movement into an official political party. “We told them we didn’t think this was a good idea but obviously we can’t stop them.”

Gaita said the CT Tea Party hopes to ultimately endorse candidates for the legislature as well as the state’s constitutional offices and U.S. Senate.

“A good candidate for the CT Tea Party isn’t someobody who has money, isn’t somebody who has political power and isn’t somebody that will be corrupted by the major party tradewinds,” Gaita said. “We’re looking for outsiders, for people who are living in the trenches, who are going through everyday struggles.”

A former U.S. Marine who served in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti, Gaita runs a health and fitness studio and serves on Bethel’s library building committee. He and his wife have two young daughters.

“We are literally one of the families in the trenches that the people in Hartford are disconnected from,” he said. “They’ve got their health care, they’ve got their union protection. They’ve squandered the public trust and they need to be fired. We need new leaders need to fix the mess were in and that’s the mission of the CT Tea Party.”

Gaita and his fellow activists now need to get a certain number of signatures in their quest to gain ballot access. For example, if they want to put a candidate for governor on the ballot, they would need roughly 10,000 signatures, said Av Harris, spokesman for the Secretary of the State’s office.

“He was a terrific man and we will all miss him terribly,” Gov. M. Jodi Rell said today, taking a few moments before delivering her State of the State address to remember Fallon.

The popular chief died last year after being diagnosed with cancer.

Shelly Sindland has more on today’s tribute.

Simmons, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, will meet with 23 conservative groups under the umbrella of the Connecticut Grassroots Alliance from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday at the Holiday Inn Express in Southington.

“Our goal is to engage with candidates, to measure our comfort level with their ideas and their character,” said Bob MacGuffie, co-founder of one of those groups, Right Principles, said in an email announcing the event. “We want time with them individually, asking our own questions, to determine if they have the strength to buck this corrupt political system.”

The gathering is one in a series of “meet and greets” with candidates over the next few months. 

Each candidate will issue an opening statement, then face questioning from selected grassroots leaders. Former Southington state Sen. Joe Markley will select written questions from the audience to pose to Simmons.

“Four candidates currently seek the Republican Senate nomination, and all have support in our ranks,” said Markley.  “I know no better way to assess them, and perhaps begin to unite around one of them, then to hear them each out individually.”

Adds Tanya Bachand, state organizer for the Connecticut Tea Party Patriots, “We have prepared some challenging questions for Congressman Simmons,” she said in the email. “We believe he deserves a fair hearing, a real chance to explain where he stands, and we appreciate his willingness to stand on the firing line.”
 

When Connecticut Local Politics launched in 2005, the political blogosphere was a lonely place. The site soon became a must-read, the first stop for political junkies, operatives, spin-meisters, staffers and policy wonks of every partisan stripe. 

Some of the blog’s regulars have already found other homes. Heath Fahle, a Republican activist and CTLP mainstay, will soon be posting on CT News Junkie and we surely haven’t heard the last of the rest of the crew — Saramerica, Vincent, wtfnucsailor and many others. I’m sure they will be blogging, twittering and posting all over the internet (including, hopefully, right here on Capitol Watch.)

Peter Schiff, the author-broker-pundit turned Republican U.S. Senate candidate, reports raising more than $1.4 million in 2009.

Schiff’s 4th quarter filing with the Federal Election Commission is not yet posted online, but his campaign spokesman said late this afternoon that he raised $1,485,920.05.

How much of the total came from Connecticut donors was not disclosed. Schiff has a national network of supporters who have launched several money bombs — one-day online fundraising blitzes — that have each brought in significant sums.

“I am proud of the financial support that I am receiving from supporters in the Nutmeg State and from around the country,” Schiff said in the press release touting his fundraising numbers. “This is a testament that our message is resonating, that the time has come to end business as usual in Washington – not from the top down but from the bottom up.”

Schiff spent a total of $398,569.28 and had a year-end cash-on-hand of $1,087,350.77.

The degree to which Linda McMahon’s U.S. campaign relies on consultants and well-paid staffers in evident in her 4th quarter campaign finance statement, filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.

McMahon, a Republican multi-millionaire seeking the seat that will be vacated by Sen. Chris Dodd, spent tens of thousands of dollars on consultants, according to her filing. For instance, she paid a Tallahassee, Fla. firm more than $120,000 to conduct voter identification research in November and December. The Hartford firm of Sullivan and LeShane took in about $170,000 for “political strategy consulting,” the campaign reports.

UPDATE: “I’ll remind you that Linda is spending money on this campaign that she earned herself through hard work,” McMahon spokesman Ed Patru said. “And her decision to fund this campaign herself and not take a penny of special interest money ensures that voters will have an independent voice in washington who is fighting for the people of the state of connecticut and nobody else. She takes this campaign seriously, and she’s put together an operation that reflects her level of commitment.

The $280,000 annual salary earned by McMahon’s campaign manager, David Cappiello, has already been documented. But several of McMahon’s other staffers are earning plush paychecks as well. Suzan Bibisi, who happens to be married to state Republican Chairman Chris Healy, drew checks totalling more than $13,700 from Nov. 30 to Dec. 31, according to the report. Patru, is earning about $9,600 a month.

And it isn’t just the consultants and campaign workers who are cashing in on McMahon’s run.

Everyone from plumbers and electronics retailers to security firms and web designers are getting business from the campaign.  

The filing shows that the campaign is paying $8,570 a month in rent for its prime, high-visibility office space on Farmington Avenue. (The office rental fee doesn’t include the $7,400 rental payments to World Wrestling Entertainment, where McMahon formerly served as CEO.)

The campaign also wrote checks for more than $7,800 to the town of West Hartford to cover the cost of parking

Raj Shah, spokesman for Republican U.S. Senate Rob Simmons, lashed out against Attorney General Richard Blumenthal for his role in a lawsuit that wound up costing the state $18 million.  

“This reckless lawsuit by Attorney General Blumenthal ruined a state business, killed Connecticut jobs and will cost the state tens of millions of dollars,” Shah said in a statement. “It serves as a window into his sue first, ask questions later mentality that has helped create one of the least competitive climates for business and cost our state jobs.”

In a stunning verdict Friday, a jury at Superior Court in Waterbury sided with Gina Malapanis, owner of Computers Plus Center Inc., that state officials had violated her or her company’s civil rights and ruined her business with false claims that she had broken her state contract.

“Richard Blumenthal never hesitates to file lawsuits and hold press conferences to demagogue businesses,” Shah said, “and that’s just one reason why he was named the nation’s ‘worst Attorney General’ by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.”

Here’s the story from Courant.com:

The state must pay more than $18 million to the owner of an East Hartford computer company that state officials had accused of skimping on parts, a Superior Court jury in Waterbury decided Friday.

In 2003, the state sued Computers Plus Center Inc. seeking $1.75 million in damages. At the time, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal claimed that, for more than 10 years, the company had been selling the state computers that lacked the proper parts.

After filing the lawsuit Blumenthal turned the case over to then-Chief State’s Attorney Christopher Morano for a criminal investigation against the owner of the company, Gina Malapanis of Hebron. The results of that investigation could not be determined early Friday afternoon.

When Malapanis was arrested in June 2004, Blumenthal said: “My office will continue to vigorously pursue our lawsuit against Computers Plus center and its owner to recover money that the state alleges was wrongfully charged. I remain determined to win a full and fair recovery of taxpayers funds.”

Malapanis filed a countersuit against the state and it was that lawsuit that the jury decided Friday.

Blumenthal is currently a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

Irv Muchnick, author, blogger and one of Linda McMahon’s most persistent critics, will appear in Stamford on March 25.

Muchnick will sign copes of his book, “Chris & Nancy,” which details the events surrounding the murder-suicide of wrestling star Chris Benoit and his wife Nancy, at the Borders bookstore in Stamford.

World Wrestling Entertainment is headquartered in Stamford; McMahon, the company’s former CEO and currently a Republican running for U.S. Senate, lives in nearby Greenwich.

“With our location, obviously, we have enjoyed great success with wrestling-related events,” Raffaello Piccoli, general manager of Borders in Stamford, said in a press release announcing the appearance. “We look forward to an exciting evening of literary aggression.”

Like many GOP activists, Haddam Republican Town Committee Chairman Ken Gronbach is still weighing his options in the U.S. Senate race.

So he was surprised to see his name on the list of endorsees released by Rob Simmons’ campaign earlier this week.

Gronbach contacted the Simmons camp and told them “listen guys, I love you but I haven’t made an endorsement yet.” He says he hasn’t decided whether to back Simmons or Republican Linda McMahon.

Simmons spokesman Raj Shah said the mix up was “a simple misunderstanding about Mr. Gronbach’s intentions and we will work hard to earn his support.”