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The DSCC has secured an ad buy in Connecticut, where they thought they wouldn’t have to pay attention to the race between Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) and WWE executive Linda McMahon (R). This $250,000 ad buy – with more likely to come – starves other candidates of potential resources. West Virginia, where the DSCC just dropped some money, also fits into this category.
But Democrats may have just caught a break in Connecticut. McMahon, appearing at a news conference that she abruptly shut down, made comments about the minimum wage that are a gift for her opponents to paint her as out of touch:
Republican Linda McMahon accepted the endorsement of a prominent business interest lobby on Thursday, but her campaign staff abruptly shut down a press conference in which McMahon was asked to explain whether she agreed with all of the organization’s positions.
Most notably, McMahon said she believed Congress should consider lowering the federal minimum wage in times of economic distress for small businesses, such as the current recession.
“The minimum wage now in our country, I think we’ve set that and 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 [...]
“I think we ought to look at all of those issues in terms of what mandates are being placed on businesses and can they afford them?” McMahon said. “I think we should get input from our business community. We should listen to our small business operators, and we should hear what it is they have to say and how it’s impacting their businesses and make some of those decisions.”
McMahon’s campaign tried some serious damage control, rushing out a video press release where she said she did not favor eliminating minimum wage increases completely. But perhaps the most damaging part of the event, for McMahon, was when she claimed that she “didn’t know if anyone at World Wrestling Entertainment, the company of which she was CEO until her campaign began, is paid the minimum wage.” She didn’t appear to even know how much it was in Connecticut.
Democrats in Connecticut have seized on the comments.
“We were shocked to learn that Linda McMahon supports lowering the minimum wage,” said Jon Green, executive director of the Working Families Party, which announced its endorsement of Blumenthal today.
“Making low-wage workers poorer is her idea to improve the economy? That’s both foolish and cruel, and not something we’d expect from a serious candidate. We should all be outraged.”
“It is outrageous that multi-millionaire McMahon is open to reducing the minimum wage, and mind boggling that she doesn’t even know how much it is. We have said from the very beginning that multi-millionaire McMahon is not looking out for the working people of this state and she certainly proved it again today,” said John Olsen, Connecticut AFL-CIO president. “Multi-millionaire McMahon doesn’t have to try and live on $8.25 an hour like working families across Connecticut do. Maybe if she stepped out of her gilded lifestyle for a moment she would stop trying to jam the bottom line of big businesses into the back of working families.”
At My Left Nutmeg, ctblogger paid attention to the fact that McMahon appeared to put McDonald’s in the category of small businesses:
LM: In the new health care law, we’re looking at a lot of mandates that are going to come into play for small businesses and we ought to not put them into effect because they can not afford them at this time.
Look at what McDonalds said this morning. McDonalds just said this morning that they just said that they may not cover their employees because it’s just too expensive and they might just pay the fine. Those are the kinds of mandates that are made without the understanding of the consequences on businesses…
I addressed the McDonald’s story earlier today.
In the 1992 election, George H.W. Bush was hounded by an incident at a National Grocers Association convention in Orlando, Florida, where he appeared not to know what a supermarket scanner was. Connecticut Democrats will try to paint McMahon as similarly out of touch with the concerns of working Americans.
39 Comments
Decrease the maximun wage with taxes.
Her campaign needs to get a tombstone pile-driver….WITH AUTHORITY!!! ;-)
My bold this is helping she is not in favor eliminating minimum wage increases completely? Just who is her Public Relations firm? They should be fired.
So when do new polls come out first Delaware and now Connecticut seems to likely be in our grasp.
Fired!? I hope she keeps ‘em!
The Dems should give more money to this race why because with an issue like this we can tar every GOPer running in the state.
Your Right what am I thinking:)
I laughed hard when I read this earlier. Glad you posted it. I bet she has loads of little Americans wanting her in office now! LOL!
McMahon is technically correct that around 85% of U.S. McDonald’s are owned by franchisees and most of those are small businesses (by the SBA definition of <500 full-time employees). Owners of a single restaurant would likely have <50 full-time employees and therefore be completely exempt from the employer mandate under the health care law. The rest would have to pay some sort of fine but it would be much cheaper than providing insurance. It would be better for workers too, since the mini-med insurance they offer is crap that over 90% of workers don't even want to buy.
The country has gotten a lot stupider since then. It wouldn’t surprise me if Tea Partiers, working at McD’s for minimum wage, would vote for McMahon and argue that she should keep her tax cut.
said she did not favor eliminating minimum wage increases completely.
This is heresy. Gutless. Ayn Rand Rosenbaum is rolling over in her grave.
Looks like 2 Tea Baggers have crashed and burned who’s next? I must be psychic I bought a pizza today perfect food to read about GOPers destroying themselves.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Tea Partiers, working at McD’s for minimum wage, would vote for McMahon and argue that she should keep her tax cut.
and eliminate the minimum wage in hopes of getting a maximum wage to replace it.
Thats great news she is not in favor of bringing back slavery whew what a relief/s
Depends is the Media covering this?
Well said!
Sorry for the OT:
BO is speaking to a full house at the DNC right now, and Maddow’s title calls it: “Pres. Obama Speaking at Sold Out Event at DNC Event in Washington, DC.”
“Sold out”? Ya think? (:>
I don’t know. Poppy’s gaffe was noticed by the middle class the U.S. used to have. The working poor have been pretty successfully demonized by the right. Many think they make the minimum wage because they are too lazy to work harder. So I would not predict this gaffe will have much influence.
I was thinking about that myself. My guess is that the DLC bused young folks in after thoroughly vetting them for their willing to be enthusiastic. I switched off because it seemed like a programmed crowd. Did Rachel say how large a group?
Maybe the story will produce it’s “the coverup effect.” Sounds like the whole report is convoluted and full of holes and excuses. Sort of a NannyGate story, I think.
Nah, she was having A/V problems with the live feed.
Do you think the DNC was really “bussing” young folks to encourage them. . . ? Eew.
But I agree that the cheering seemed overly enthusiastic, as if they’ve not been paying attention to the curriculum and have the luxury of living in their parents’ basement.
Ugh, here comes L’ODonnell. . .
Saying “she doesn’t want to eliminate the minimum wage completely” really seems to compound the error and lead to the next question: what does she think the minimimum wage IS and what does she think it SHOULD BE? Also, how many Nutmeggers does she think earn the minimum wage, and how many earn only 25 or 50 cents more? All those wages would decrease, as many employers like to boast they pay “above minimum wage” but would lower their payrates if the minimum went down.
The oligarchs’ parade garb is showing: Raese (“I earned my money the old-fashioned way — I inherited it!) in WVA, Whitman (“Housekeeper?”) in CA, and now McMahon (“Reduce the minimum wage!”) in CT.
I have no evidence one way or another. They just seemed programmed, so I thought backward from my impression to how that might have happened. Besides, coming to think of it, who are the only young people who can afford to live in or near D.C. these days but interns, i.e. children of rich parents, working for D pols. Interns would know what’s expected of them in a prez speech audience without having to be told.
That would be the case if anyone from corp media would bother to ask the follow-up Qs, which they know they are expected NOT to do.
eCANH, sorry I neglected the /s tag after the “bussing” of youth by the DNC ~ I was referring to the olde fashion meaning of bussing as *smooching*.
But speaking of which (OT), L’ODonnell just mentioned that his show’s theme tonight is “sexy politics” with Meeghan McLame. I’m starting seeing a pattern here . . . Levi’s Johnston, MMc, . . . (:>
sexy celebrity politicians,is he inviting rhambo?
Hee hee ~ I’ve moved on to J. Stewart. He’s rocking as usual. (:>
Getting back to basics, how is it the government’s business getting in the middle of a voluntary contract between two free individuals? In the land of the free and the home of the brave, the feds can tell me how much my pay must be? Ben Franklin probably wouldn’t have gone for that.
Bussing is smooching.
Busing is not.
Yeah, two GOPs — Mayor Shortie and Miss Bud.
Nice progressive programming there, MSNBC.
Mrs. McMahon’s a real newbie. Seasoned Republicans never let slip what they really think. This is the downside of having rich Rethugs run for office. Sure, they can pay for their campaign, which is great, but they don’t know how to keep from saying what they think.
“Getting back to basics, how is it the government’s business getting in the middle of a voluntary contract between two free individuals?”
So to address your point of government involvement, would you support the government getting in the middle of a voluntary contract between two free individuals, if one party or the other didn’t fulfill the contract – such as not paying for goods delivered? How about if two individuals voluntarily entered into a contract to murder-for-hire – should the government have to stay out of that? Fundamentally how could you actually enforce a contract between two free individuals short of those two individuals each having their own militias if you are taking the government out of getting involved in contractual matters?
At least she’s honest! /s
In my part of south western CT there are barely any fast food restaurants because the cost of living is sky high. In this area, you cannot pay people anything close to minimum wages and expect people to survive. And given that the WWF HQ is in my area, Linda should know exactly how unrealisticly low existing minimum wages already are.
Our establishments “Austerity for Prosperity” push is entirely wrong headed and will have tragic results.
What a silly proposition. When your free counterparty freely decides not to be bound by mere words on paper, but instead by their greed and raw power, and when it comes time to arbitrate the terms, maybe even force a Goliath to pay up, whose court you gonna run to, freeman? And on whose roads? By what electricity will the building be operated? Got sewers? I hope you’re packin’, ‘cuz in your dream world of no gov’t, there won’t be any cops either, no aid cars, no fire engines, and so on.
Are you suggesting humans exist sui generis, absolutely outside any culture or society, and that gov’t always is an unwanted and alien interference, instead of a mechanism we’ve devised to achieve certain common goals?
That’s so 19th century!
Yeah, you tell ‘em, o unexpectable one, that’s what I’m saying. What a sterile, reductivist, lab-bound view of being human.
Tis true, sadly. Tea partiers don’t have to pretend to appeal to common sense or the common man or to wisdom or sense or anything like that. They only have to appeal to free-floating rage. If she loses, next time they’ll nominate one of the wrestlers she owns. He will throw his Democratic opponent against the wall, and the wingnuts will go wild and the Dems will stay home because politics have become too unseemly. Oh how I hope I’m only exaggerating.
It never bothered my liberal butt that the first Bush didn’t know what a supermarket scanner was. Do you think these priveleged elitists would ever do their own shopping? I’m not bothered that he waved to Stevie Wonder, either. Pop culture is a distraction. And by the way, Obama (for whom I voted) sucks.
Third party: Jane Hamsher for president.
Anybody notice how Linda McMahon and Carly Fiorina appear to be at least sisters, if not twins. (Evil twins, to be sure.)
If the price of something goes down, all else being equal, demand goes up.
If something = labor, employment goes up.
With unemployment at 10% are most of you arguing we shouldn’t examine the minimum wage?
How cruel and heartless are you? Do you really think you are helping people by pricing them out of the job market?
Shame on you.