What they don't say is more telling

Before the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush’s campaign Web site had a biography of the candidate so thorough that it included the names of his pets, Barney, India, Cowboy and Spot, but not his place of birth, New Haven, Conn. “He was born in 1946 and grew up in Midland and Houston, Texas,†according to the official biography.

The candidate’s handlers apparently believed his image as an aw-shucks Texan wouldn’t be enhanced by his eastern roots and New Haven didn’t make its appearance in the official biography until after the election. Even then, on his first visit to Connecticut as president in April 2001, Bush neglected to mention he was born in the state.

Since then, I’ve been interested in what other candidates fail to tell us about themselves in these affectionate biographies, because what they don’t say about themselves sometimes says a lot about them. With that in mind, I checked out the campaign Web site of the least conventional U.S. Senate candidate, Linda McMahon, to see what she might not want to discuss.

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At Linda2010, McMahon readily admits to being born and raised in New Bern, N.C., but there was one rather glaring omission:

Wrestling.

On the home page of Linda2010, a richly detailed biography begins by telling us, “Linda E. McMahon recently stepped down as the chief executive officer of the WWE, a publicly traded company in Stamford, Conn., that is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Linda helped grow the company from a modest 13-person operation to a publicly traded, global enterprise with over 500 employees and offices in New York, Los Angeles, Orlando, London, Ontario, Shanghai and Tokyo.â€

Although we are reminded three times WWE is publicly traded, we are never told what WWE means, that it is an acronym for World Wrestling Entertainment. With its offices in Shanghai and Tokyo, WWE could just as well be the Worldwide Wonton Exchange.

Wrestling, the source of the fortune that has allowed McMahon to run for the Senate, is never mentioned, except in a couple of news stories reprinted way back on the site’s news page. There is no mention of wrestling in the thousands of words produced by the campaign.

 McMahon, of course, has reason to be shy about her former profession. Soon after she announced her candidacy, the Internet showcased videos of WWE television exhibitions that included simulated sex and other activities not usually associated with a race for the United States Senate. As the CEO, McMahon was a hands-on executive, making appearances in the ring with some of her colorful employees.

The Senate hopeful has also been reluctant to get specific about election issues, letting visitors to the Web site know nice things about her, like being “a fighter who hates to lose.â€

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Last month, The Hartford Courant did print a very modest compilation of McMahon on the issues that revealed she thinks the stimulus money was misspent, believes any overhaul of health care “must address rising costs†and finds “evidence to the positive and to the contrary about global warming.â€

McMahon calls herself pro-choice but “with a caveat because I’ve never had to make that decision for myself.†She doesn’t want to see “another multiyear escalation of conflict in Afghanistan†and hopes “the troops come home safely as soon as possible … responsibly and in victory, not defeat.†And that’s about it.

Despite all of the above, there is a real danger of McMahon becoming the Republican Party’s senatorial candidate. With the Republicans’ chances of victory severely reduced by the departure of Chris Dodd and the emergence of Dick Blumenthal, the party will turn to the candidate who can pay her own way, and that’s the lady from WWE, a publicly traded company.

Dick Ahles is a retired journalist from Simsbury. E-mail him at dahles@hotmail.com.