{"id":382131,"date":"2010-03-02T19:20:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T00:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.courant.com,2010:\/capitol_watch\/\/9.72859"},"modified":"2010-03-03T13:41:15","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T18:41:15","slug":"the-gop-debate-linda-mcmahon-rob-simmons-peter-schiff-tangle-in-first-televised-match-on-fox-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/382131","title":{"rendered":"The GOP Debate: Linda McMahon, Rob Simmons, Peter Schiff Tangle In First Televised Match On Fox TV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The three Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate stepped on the stage Tuesday night for their first televised debate and battled&nbsp;over who would be the party&#8217;s best candidate in November.<\/p>\n<p>Former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon, and investor Peter Schiff squared off at the University of Hartford in a debate sponsored by The Hartford Courant and Fox 61.<\/p>\n<p>The first 15 minutes focused on the economy as the candidates criticized various bailouts and the Democrat-written stimulus bill that was designed to jump start the national economy.<\/p>\n<p>When asked, in the first question,&nbsp;how he would get the economy back on track, Simmons responded, &#8220;I would not recommend lawsuits as a way to create jobs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That remark was a reference to a comment made on the same stage on Monday night by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Blumenthal had said that the many&nbsp;lawsuits that he had filed through the years had actually created jobs because businesses want a level playing field that could be accomplished through the lawsuits.<\/p>\n<p>Both Simmons and Schiff said they opposed the federal Troubled Asset Relief&nbsp;Program, known as TARP. McMahon said she supported TARP in its original form, adding, &#8220;I would not have supported AIG bailouts or auto bailouts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>By 7:12 p.m., the McMahon campaign had already sent out an e-mail that responded to the comment by Simmons that McMahon had supported TARP.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.courant.com\/news\/politics\/\">http:\/\/www.courant.com\/news\/politics\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not running because I need a job,&#8221; McMahon said in her closing remarks. &#8220;I&#8217;m running to shake things up. &#8230; I&#8217;m not a career politician. &#8230; I want to be your senator. I want to hear what you have to say.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In his closing remarks, Simmons mentioned his grandfather, who was born in Brooklyn, New York and was from a family of Irish immigrants.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Simmons family did not come here for a government program,&#8221; Simmons said. &#8220;I believe the American Dream is at risk&#8221; because of recent policies. &#8220;I&#8217;m certainly the only candidate who has served in war and worked for peace.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Schiff, who employs more than 100 people in six offices in his investment firm,&nbsp;said, &#8220;I&#8217;m an economist who actually got it right. &#8230; Nobody sounded the alarm louder than I did. &#8230; A lot of people laughed at me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Away from the television cameras, McMahon has recently been conducting a brochure blitz that blasts Simmons repeatedly for his votes in Congress on a&nbsp;variety of issues.&nbsp;Simmons has rejected some of the claims as false, but he has not had the money to run television commercials as a counter-attack. Some insiders say that a continuing, relentless attack by McMahon will have an impact on the campaign, even if Simmons is able to rebut some of the charges.<\/p>\n<p>The brochures&nbsp;are being sent to Republican households around the state, but some Democrats and independents have received them at their homes, too.<\/p>\n<p>The highly expensive brochures have included multiple fold-outs and are part of a campaign in which McMahon has said she could spend as much as $50 million of her own money. So far, the campaign has spent at least $6.5 million &#8211; including television and radio commercials. By contrast, neither Simmons nor Schiff has broadcast any television commercials.<\/p>\n<p>Simmons recently told Capitol Watch that he has raised about $3 million overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The three Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate stepped on the stage Tuesday night for their first televised debate and battled&nbsp;over who would be the party&#8217;s best candidate in November. Former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon, and investor Peter Schiff squared off at the University of Hartford in a debate sponsored by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4001,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-382131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4001"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}