So now we have to be really serious, Republican Senate candidateLinda McMahontoldher supporters the August night she won the Connecticutprimaryby a3-1 margin, having outspent her opponent by a 12-1 margin.Focusing on the economic crisis that threatens our future as the crucial issue of thecampaign, McMahon added, Washington is out of control, and it’s not too much to say that America’s future is on the line.
Then came the sexploitation tapes in McMahon’s background that have long been a source ofcomplaint, both for degrading women and showing violence against women, includingonetape where McMahon herself decks a scantily clad young woman.
Now mid-way between the primary and the election, thecontestbetweenMcMahonand Democratic nominee Rep. ChrisMurphyis paying less attention to the national economy and much more attention the control of borderline raunchyvideosproduced by World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) back when McMahon and her husbandVince McMahonwere running thefamily businesstogether.
When the Democratic Party recently exploited an exploitation tape in acampaign ad, McMahon threatened to sue, claiming copyright infringement and the adcame downwithin hours, with the websiteVimeo.comdenying the action was political, but rather due to a third-party notification by World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. claiming that this material is infringing: PG TV?In recent days, other internetmaterialhas appeared and quicklyvanishedat WEE’s request, andWWEitself announced self-cleansing plans to remove dated and edgier footage from digital platforms, the sort of material used against McMahon during her losing Senate campaign in 2010.
WWE also hasplansto issue a three-disk collection of DVDs including salacious programming produced when WWE co-founder McMahon headed the business.But the release of eight hours of sexualized content from the mid-1990s on, during the WWE’s so-called Attitude Era, when it went gross to capture a younger, male demographic, with great success, won’t happen till after the election.
Last May, a Connecticuteditorialcharacterized McMahon as having amassed her fortune from “the business of violence, pornography, and general raunch.”McMahon went into full frontal backlash,demandinga retraction and threatening to sue, and WWE wrote aletterto the same effect.
Although WWE has also asked YouTube to take down videos in 2010, theJournal Inquirerof north-central Connecticut reports that: YouTube has since made available more than 400,000 videos with WWE-related content, but the company recently again requested it take down videos that McMahon’s opponents and other critics have called pornographic or offensive. They show scenes of simulated heterosexual and lesbian sex, simulated necrophilia, and debasement and humiliation, including against a character portrayed as mentally disabled.
Another issue distracting the candidates from the national economy are theirattackson each other’s personal finances, according to the New YorkTimes.
Vince and Linda McMahon, who are worth an estimated$500 millionthese days, filed for bankruptcy in 1976.That enabled them to walk away fromalmost $1 millionin debts to 26 creditors, including Gerard E. Langeler, now 96 and living in New Hampshire, who was owed $4,100.04 for advertising and publicity work.
“It didn’t end well,” he said. “I did my best to forgetit.”
The Dayof New London broke the story September 18 after looking at the bankruptcy records.McMahon had never made a secret of the bankruptcy, using it to connect with others having financial problems, but she had refused all requests for any documents.Using details that had never before been public, the paper estimated the 1976 debts would not be worth about $3.9 million, or about one-sixteenth of what McMahon has so far spent on her political campaigns.
While the McMahons’ debts have been legally satisfied through the bankruptcy process, McMahon’s campaign would not say whether the debtors were made whole once the McMahons could afford to pay.More recently McMahon hassaidthat she and her husband have the intention to reimburse all private individual creditors that can be located.Langeler andothershave said they have not been paid.
Pamela Behn, whose family owned Blue Lanam Farm in Colchester where the McMahons boarded and bred Appaloosa horses, said her family hasn’t been paid the $33,171 the McMahons owed in 1976.”I find it difficult to believe that people can write off debts and sleep well at night,” Behn, 68, who now lives in Utah, toldHearstConnecticut Newspapers before McMahon announced her intent. “That’s not the way I wasraised.”
Meanwhile, Murphy continues to refuse to release documents relating to his 2007 near-foreclosure experience that was resolved by abank loanMcMahon calls fishy.She has also attacked him for making late payments not only on his mortgage, but his car tax and property taxes as well.The McMahons also had a late property tax payment this year, saying they never received the original bill.
According topolls, the race has tightened significantly since the spring of 2011, when Murphy had a double-digit lead over McMahon.In March 2012, one poll showed Murphy with 52 per cent, McMahon with 37, and 9 per cent undecided.Murphy.By mid-September, both candidates results were mixed, with Murphy leading 37-33 in one poll and McMahon leading 45-41 in another.Those polls showed the Undecided vote increasing to 14-28 per cent as the electorate got to know the candidates better.
