Linda McMahon for Senate

Sep 20, 2009

Chris Dodd’s dismal approval ratings are like a giant low over Connecticut that keeps ushering in new storm systems, all the senator wannabes who, Democrats and Republicans alike, see a rare chance to nab a plum seat in Congress.

Just last week, two more Republicans slipped into an already crowded field of contenders. There are so many now that the announcements are generating less and less news coverage.

Dog bites man. Another Senate candidate announces. Ho hum.

The news last week might have been a bit dispiriting, though, for Rob Simmons, who, until now, has been the presumptive Republican candidate to go up against Dodd in 2010, indeed the one who still trumps the senator in polling, most recently 44 percent to 39 percent.

But Simmons’ early frontrunner status as the Republican challenger seems to be sucking in more Republican candidates who certainly must think they could do better.

Simmons indeed is the other giant low hovering over Connecticut politics.

The new Republican challengers have very quickly changed the dynamics of the race for the former second-district congressman from Stonington, who is now going to have to focus a lot more time and money on getting the nomination, something that could even turn into an uphill battle.

Peter Schiff, the entrepreneurial economist, author and blogger who cannily predicted last year’s economic meltdown, is an intriguing candidate who’s already raised more than $1 million.

Schiff, who was savvy enough to see the banking crisis looming, back when people were still giddy about a rising stock market, would in some respects be the perfect candidate to put against Dodd, the Banking Committee chairman now so widely blamed for letting the crisis happen.

Schiff is an outside-the-Beltway celebrity candidate who has no record to attack because he’s never held elected office.

However, Linda McMahon, the World Wrestling Entertainment CEO who has given up her day job to run for Dodd’s seat, is the biggest storm system gathering on Simmons’ horizon.

McMahon is an accomplished businesswoman. She and her husband have created a billion-dollar business that is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

It’s not only that she is an entertainment business executive who is going to run a fabulous campaign show, every bit as glossy and engrossing as a WWE knockdown bout.

In the introduction video posted on her campaign Web site, as slick and well-produced an announcement speech as I’ve ever seen, she appears poised and serene and sincere. She seems as likeable as Jodi Rell, but competent, too.

Most worrisome of all, for Simmons, is that she’s rich and appears ready to spend and spend to get what she wants.

She is rumored to be prepared to invest up to $30 million to win Dodd’s seat, and her populist approach, to accept no PAC money and no more than $100 from any individual, is going to make Dodd and Simmons seem equally dirty.

McMahon, too, has never held elected office and therefore has no record to attack. Incredibly, she also admits to not being a regular voter, having sat out the 2006 general election.

Still, she manages to make even that kind of indifference sort of charming.

And you can bet she’s going to be willing to hang some of the greatest lows of the Bush years, like the war in Iraq, around Simmons’ neck.

Dodd might have taken some solace last week in the news that his approval ratings have improved somewhat, from abysmal to intolerable.

But the better news for him was that Republicans plan to make a distracting show out of the fight for the nomination and that some people seem to think Rob Simmons the frontrunner may be even more vulnerable than Chris Dodd the senator.

Source: http://www.theday.com/re_print.aspx?re=5efcf16c-4328-43ea-b8b8-19dcf0b8ac46