A 2010 Match To Watch

Keep an eye out for the most interesting of races in the Senate primary in Connecticut. Republicans actually have a shot at winning this seat, which is occupied than none other than Chris Dodd, a powerful five-term Democratic incumbent. 2010 looks like the year he can be beat. Dodd’s association with controversial AIG bonuses, his Countrywide VIP sweetheart mortgage loan has hurt him badly. Congressman Rob Simmons on the Republican side leads Dodd in the polls.

Looks pretty simple, right? Except there is a fly in the ointment, and her name is Linda McMahon. If the name sounds familiar, it should. She is the wife of Vince McMahon of the World Wrestling Entertainment. Linda recently resigned as CEO of the WWE to run for Dodd's Senate seat. The problem here is that she has a vast fortune and is willing to spend it to get this seat. I don't see her as the kind of Republican we want in the Senate. While many people enjoy WWE for it's entertainment value, I have some problems with it's mix of sex, drugs, and entertainment geared towards kids. The WWE themselves say that every week more than 2.6 million fans ages 6-14 tune into WWE's top rated television programs. They reach more kids than the Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon combined.

Why is that a problem? Let's consider first the "bra and pantie matches" where the girls strip each other down to their underwear. Then there are the girls they present, like 2008 Playboy Magazine Model of the Year, Jillian Beyor. Many of the girls at WWE are soft porn models. But it gets worse. Back in June Mackenzie Montgomery was fired. Could the reason be that Linda was running for the Senate and Mackenzie had appeared in over 60 hardcore porn films (specializing in bondage films) before and during her time as a WWE Diva? After McMahon announced her candidacy in Sept three immediate changes were made. The girls are no longer posing in Playboy, the men are no longer cutting themselves with razor blades to bleed during the match, and the "bra and pantie" matches have ceased.

Did Linda imagine that that would clean up her image? Did she think that what she had run in the past wouldn't matter?

Let's not forget the drugs involved here either. Things were not always like this with wrestling. Living Legend Bruno Sammartino explains here what changed:

I got very appalled with the direction Vince McMahon Jr. took wrestling. I was concerned from the time I retired to the time I came back as a color commentator. After McMahon's father passed away, and he took over.

I was appalled with the drugs going on and the steroids. I became very disillusioned. Then I started seeing other changes. The language started getting loose and had all this vulgarity. There was the beautiful looking girls but always wearing these skimpy things. I just became angered and saddened to see the business I spent 22 years in take this direction.

Especially the drug part of it. I just felt there had already been a couple of deaths and that as long as it continued, it was going to get worse and worse. I just thought I didn't want to be a part of it. I thought I got to get out of it, and I did.''

Look, I don't care what you watch if you are an adult. If you want to watch this trash, more power to you, but when they are marketing their "product" to children and portraying themselves as "family friendly" and this is what they are producing, then I have a problem with that. A big problem. Don't think for a moment things won't go back to where they were after she loses.

Wrestling superstar Billy Graham is also speaking out against Linda McMahon:

Superstar Billy Graham is speaking out against the woman he says made millions from the violence, sexual exploitation, blood and excesses of professional wrestling. What outrages him particularly, he says, are recent attempts to sanitize the wrestling mega-enterprise whose sexy women wrestlers once performed in "lingerie matches" and were still posing nude in Playboy as recently as 2008. He views this toning down as a huge act of hypocrisy — an attempt to graft a family-friendly face onto a business that has been anything but. (via Hugging Harold Reynolds)

In other words the WWE is trying to scrub it's image for Linda McMahon's Senate run.

This is the last kind of candidate we need in the GOP.

What we need is someone like Rob Simmons. Contrast and Compare.

Rob Simmons served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam war and won two Bronze Star Medals. He continued as a Reserve Military Intelligence Officer for 37 years before retiring at the rank of Colonel. In 1998, Rob was recognized by for his contributions to the Military Intelligence Corps with the Knowlton Award for "Integrity, Moral Character, Professional Competence and Selflessness. Following his active duty service in the Army, Rob joined the Central Intelligence Agency, working as an Operations Officer for a decade. He was awarded the Agency Seal Medallion (it's highest civilian award) in 1985. In Congress, Simmons served on the Armed Services, Transportation, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security Committees. Rep. Simmons also served as the Chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment and Veterans' Health Subcommittee.

What Simmons doesn't have is gazillions of dollars made off WWE "entertainment." let's not let money be the measure of our candidates in the GOP. Let's let character be the measure. Because if it is, then Simmons wins hands down.