Is Blumenthal ready to rumble?

Editors and writers from The Winsted Journal and The Lakeville Journal met with Republican senatorial candidate and former World Wrestling Entertainment mogul Linda McMahon recently at The Lakeville Journal’s main offfice, and while it’s too early to say which candidate will get our endorsement in this year’s election, it is certainly clear which one is making more noise.

McMahon is fulfilling her promise to spend $50 million campaigning against Democrat and current Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, and it appears the money is paying off. Political signs are popping up on lawns throughout Litchfield County, while some might wonder if Blumenthal’s signs have come back from the printer.

While you might laugh at McMahon as you surf the Web for videos of her slapping one man and kicking another in the groin, you will also find the Internet filled with more flattering videos produced by her campaign lambasting Blumenthal on credibility issues, while putting forth a fresh attitude from a woman who knows how to speak directly to a camera.

Blumenthal has created comparably lukewarm television spots and has been weak in his responses to McMahon’s criticisms. Responding to the McMahon campaign’s first major assault, Blumenthal whimpered that he had unintentionally misspoken about his service in Vietnam, and that he has apologized for it, without really explaining how unintentional misstatements are made by an experienced attorney general.

More recently, Blumenthal was chided by the McMahon campaign for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in Political Action Committee money. The revelation came in campaign filings after Blumenthal told MSNBC in no uncertain terms that he was opposed to PAC money and had never accepted it. This was also a misstatement, as he had accepted some PAC money as a state legislator prior to becoming attorney general.

The Blumenthal campaign responded to the PAC money issue by waving it off, refusing to make a case for the decision to accept PAC money. Instead, the campaign lobbed irrelevant insults back at McMahon.

The most important arrow in Blumenthal’s quiver is McMahon’s lack of experience, which she conveys again and again with short, evasive answers about what she will accomplish as a senator. In our meeting with the candidate, she actually mentioned some legislation that had already been introduced when asked what she would first do when elected, and then proceeded to reduce her argument to the vague, tea-infused concept that “we have to cut spending.�

You can bet the farm that McMahon wasn’t cutting spending, but investing, when she helped build World Wrestling Entertainment. That, combined with increasingly expensive tickets and T-shirts (kind of like increasing taxes), is what helped her collect $50 million in campaign play money. Voters have to wonder how anyone with that amount disposable income can claim she needs to have her own tax cuts extended.

Having met both Blumenthal and McMahon in person and shaken both of their hands, it is actually difficult to decide which candidate would win in a fist fight, but Blumenthal ought to be far superior when it comes to debating. His knowledge and accomplishments for ordinary Americans tip the scales in his favor. If McMahon ducks enough debates, she will go down in history as a coward and a phony — attributes fitting of a modern-day senator.

One thing is certain. McMahon’s campaign should not be taken as a joke. This businesswoman’s physical presence is bold and commanding, and she comes across both in person and in television commercials as confident and plainspoken, while Blumenthal is disappointingly weak, leathery and out-of-touch, like he has a case of Lieberman-itis.

If the AG has something up his sleeve, he certainly hasn’t offered any hints, and if he keeps letting McMahon slap him around, he will end up getting knocked out of the ring.