Reading the tea leaves of Romney's demise

By Richard K. Barry

If things really start to go badly or, I should say, worse for Mitt Romney's presidential aspirations, it will be interesting to see what the early signs might be. Will some super-PAC money start to move away from Romney and towards tight Senate and House races? Will the blame game among the radical right begin sooner than we might have expected? And, maybe most tellingly, how soon will it take for Republicans in close races to begin to distance themselves from the top of the ticket?

Well, on that last point, apparently not all that long.

The Hill reports that Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass), who is currently on the losing end of polls against Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren, wasted no time denouncing Romney's controversial remarks on the "47 percent."

Everything's good... right?

In an e-mail to The Hill, he said this:

That's not the way I view the world. As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in. Too many people today who want to work are being forced into public assistance for lack of jobs.

In a decidedly blue state, Brown knows what he is up against as Elizabeth Warren had this to say about Romney's comments in an interview with The Washington Post:

It's a party that says, "I've got mine and the rest of you are on your own," versus those who say, "We're all in this together." There's a clear choice in this election, between those who believe that to build an economy, the rich and powerful should get richer and more powerful, with tax cuts for the wealthiest and deregulation, while everyone else is left to pick up the pieces.

Yes, Romney might have made things harder for himself, but he is making things damn near impossible for Republicans who are tying to win in more progressive states.

He said what?

Meanwhile, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon, who is running for an open seat in Connecticut, also denounced Romney's comments in a statement posted to her website:

I disagree with Governor Romney’s insinuation that 47% of Americans believe they are victims who must depend on the government for their care. I know that the vast majority of those who rely on government are not in that situation because they want to be. People today are struggling because the government has failed to keep America competitive, failed to support job creators, and failed to get our economy back on track.

McMahon's Democratic opponent Chris Murphy dismissed McMahon's criticism of Romney as a "desperate attempt to distance herself from the right-wing agenda and Republican party she strongly supports."

So, there you have it, two Republican Senate candidates running away from Mitt Romney as fast as they can.

Who's next? Don't be shy.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Linda McMahon, WWE, and violence against women

Guest post by R.K. Barry

Jackson Katz had a very important piece at The Huffington Post recently about Connecticut Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon. Katz wrote:

[U]ntil Linda McMahon decided to run as a Republican for the United States Senate, she was one-half of one of the most culturally destructive, and blatantly misogynistic business partnerships in the history of popular entertainment. Under Linda and her husband Vince McMahon's leadership, the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) has featured some of the most brutal, violent and hateful depictions of women in all of media culture over the past twenty years. 

He discussed the fact that all of this has received scant attention from the media. He pointed out that McMahon has amazingly pitched much of her Senate campaign to women.

I have always found professional wresting the most idiotic of spectacles, whether in the old days of Haystacks Calhoun and Andre the Giant or more recently with its fully scripted narratives that only the slack-jawed, or those too young to know any better, could find entertaining. 

Having worked for several years for an advocacy group that focused on educating the public about violence against women, I have a particular sensitivity to the issue. But I am at a loss to know how anyone viewing the video that Katz posts, showing women degraded by the WWE for the purposes of entertainment, could support Linda McMahon, who made millions off this kind of dreck.

The video is about ten minutes long and speaks for itself. (See below.)

As civilized as we like to think we are, in so much of our culture it is still simply the case that women exist for the entertainment of men. And it seems that this is okay for too many people.

If it were not okay, Linda McMahon would never have been considered a serious contender for high public office. In a fully civilized world, she and her business-partner husband would have been booted off the public stage a long time ago.

This is hard to watch but worth sitting through. It's one of those things. If a person watches this and still thinks that Linda McMahon is a suitable candidate for the United States Senate, not much more can be said.

Craziest Republican of the Day: Linda McMahon

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For suggesting that the minimum wage, already low, ought to be lowered:

Linda McMahon, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, suggested Thursday that the U.S. ought to take a second look at the federal minimum wage.

"The minimum wage now in our country, I think we've set that, so there are a lot of people have benefited from it in our country, but I think we ought to review how much it ought to be, and whether or not we ought to have increases in the minimum wage," McMahon said at a press conference.

After the event, "McMahon admitted she didn't know what the current minimum wage is or if any of her employees at World Wrestling Entertainment are paid it," CTNewsJunkie.com reported. McMahon was CEO of the WWE before launching her Senate campaign.

In other words, screw the poor and those just barely getting by. The economy is still in terrible shape, but let's just make their lives even more difficult. No matter that McMahon herself is worth millions and doesn't have a fucking clue.

She may be crazy, but she's certainly a Republican, and so her cruelty is right in line with her politics. It hardly distinguishes her from her fellow Republicans.

As her opponent, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, responded:

Linda McMahon laid off ten percent of her workers and takes home $46 million a year so it's no surprise she's thinking about lowering the minimum wage.

Remind me again how Republicans are successfully portraying themselves as populists, as the party of the people, how they're propagandizing voters into believing that they'll do something other than make the rich richer and the powerful more powerful.

It requires astonishing ignorance and denial to buy that bullshit.