Linda McMahon's Shopping for a Senate Seat

It is amazing what you can buy for a mere $ 80,000,000. Linda McMahon may be on the verge of buying a seat on the U.S. Senate if polls showing she is within the margin of error in her race with Chris Murphy are accurate.

McMahon's campaign expenditure report states as of September 30, 2012 she has loaned her campaign $ 27,320,883 or 92% of her campaign war chest of $29,324,500. In her losing campaign to Dick Blumenthal she spent $ 50,000,000 of her personal funds. So far it appears that $ 80,000,000 is not too much for Linda to spend for a Senate seat. 

By contrast Chris Murphy has raised $ 8,212,452 from outside contributors or 96% of his total receipts of $ 8,407,109. 

For anyone following this campaign in lower Fairfield County you can see the gross disparity in advertising budgets every day as McMahon's television ads drown out the few Murphy advertisements. The New York media market is too expensive for Murphy to afford to respond to all the attacks. Outside Democratic groups have tried to take up the slack by running ads attacking McMahon. 

Outspent by $ 20,000,000, Murphy has had to rely on free advertising in the news media and local volunteers to get his message out. Linda McMahon relies on paid staff, consultants and vendors and, perhaps, by paying ostensible "volunteers" , according to a video interviewing pro-Linda demonstrators at a recent debate linked on the My Left Nutmeg website. 

Linda McMahon exploited her greater ability to dominate campaign media in Fairfield County by refusing to debate Chris Murphy here. She knows he is relatively unknown down here and denied him free access to local media a Fairfield County debate would afford.

At the same time she has carpet-bombed the electorate with advertisements designed to soften her image, particularly among women, and to vilify Chris Murphy. For example, her ads trumpet that Chris has received over $ 1,000,000 at taxpayer expense without revealing that she merely added up years of salaries he received while serving in Congress. It takes real chutzpa for a self-funded candidate to attack a career public servant over his salary.

A similarly false advertisement invited voters to "connect the dots" between a home equity loan Chris received in 2007 and his service on the House Banking Committee. The Hartford Courant reported "there is no evidence that Mr. Murphy received any preferential treatment." But we don't read the Hartford Courant down here and Linda's ads certainly won't mention that.

We are seeing what money can do to corrupt the political process. Mrs. McMahon's wealth gives her a very loud megaphone. The Supreme Court's Citizen United case allows moneyed institutions and individuals to drown out the rest of us. This was brought home recently when I attended a very successful,well-attended Murphy fundraiser in Greenwich that raised substantial sums, but actually was a mere pittance compared to the $ 27,000,000 Mrs. McMahon drew out of her coffers.