In one of the more hotly contested Senate races today, Linda McMahon squares off against Democrat Chris Murphy in Connecticut. McMahon has been doing anything she can in the past few days to distance herself from her Republican background in what is a heavily Democrat state.
McMahon, who is married to the owner of World Wrestling Entertainment owner Vince McMahon and is a former CEO of the company, has been using some questionable tactics in the run up to the vote. Door hangers have been distributed across Connecticut calling for voters to elect her and to re-elect President Obama, under the slogan that both “will fight for us.”
There are also T-shirts being handed out close to polling stations that include McMahon’s name with Obama’s. Not just that, but the T-shirts are in the style of the Service Employees International Union tees, a union which has already endorsed McMahon’s rival Chris Murphy.
Not to mention the “sample ballots” that show a ticked box for McMahon and Obama.
What isn’t mentioned on any of this last-minute campaign literature is the fact that McMahon is a Republican, has previously pledged her support to GOP candidate Mitt Romney, and that the Romney campaign has received $150,000 in combined donations from the McMahon family.
My Linda McMahon cartoon. Poor Mitt can’t get any love from Republicans: twitter.com/RobTornoe/stat…
— Rob Tornoe (@RobTornoe) November 6, 2012
McMahon campaign manager Corry Bliss told The Connecticut Mirror:
There are thousands of Democrats across the state of Connecticut who are supporting President Obama that are also supporting Linda McMahon today, we want to make sure their voices are heard,”
The GOP leadership in the state are understandably not too impressed with McMahon’s tactics. Party chair for the state, Jerry Labriola, said on Monday that her strategy was all based toward getting more Republican votes from the state’s minority and urban voters:
The McMahon camp is pulling out all the stops to win an election and it is one of the first efforts by a statewide Republican candidate to target voters in an urban area, some Republicans may not favor this tactic, but I’m confident that we will close ranks by Tuesday because there is so much at stake.
Democrat Chris Murphy understandably isn’t too impressed either, so his spokesman Eli Zupnick said:
Voters have been seeing President Obama on their televisions endorsing Chris Murphy for days, they are not going to be fooled by McMahon’s desperate lies and last-minute tricks.