While Linda McSham attempts to dig herself out of the hole she created when the Republican candidate for Senate stated that she supports adding a sunset provision to Social Security, on Wednesday Chris Murphy, accompanied by Senator Richard Blumenthal, met with seniors at the Meriden Center to talk about the differences between himself and his opponent when it comes to protecting programs for the elderly.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy says he raised about $3 million over the past three months for his Connecticut Senate campaign.
Polls show the congressman is in a dead heat against Republican Linda McMahon, the wealthy former wrestling executive.
Murphy's campaign told The Associated Press on Friday that it received a total of 30,762 contributions during the last quarter and how that's more than eight times the number of contributions received in the previous quarter.
The campaign said 91 percent of the contributions were $100 or less.
PRESS RELEASE:
Riding a surge of momentum into the campaign's final stretch, Chris Murphy's campaign for U.S. Senate raised $3 million in the third fundraising quarter of 2012, bringing the campaign's fundraising total to more than $8.5 million.
"The incredible number of contributions that we received this quarter confirms the support that I have seen in communities across the state for a campaign focused on the issues that matter to Connecticut families," said Murphy. "I can't write myself a check for $50 million, but I've got something much better: enthusiastic supporters that no candidate can buy."
During the third quarter, Murphy's campaign received 30,672 contributions, more than eight times the number of contributions received in the second quarter. The average individual contribution was $79, and nearly one third of the contributions were received in the last week of the quarter as Murphy's campaign surged ahead.
Since announcing his candidacy, Murphy's campaign has built an unparalleled grassroots coalition that continues to grow every day. He has received the nomination of the Connecticut Democratic Party and has been endorsed by the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, National Organization for Women, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the State Council of the Service Employees International Union, the Working Families Party, the Connecticut Hispanic Democratic Caucus, the Connecticut Education Association, Connecticut Fire Fighters, United Auto Workers, Connecticut Laborers, the Connecticut State Building and Construction Trades Council, the Communications Workers of America, the League of Conservation Voters, Connecticut's entire U.S. House delegation, Senator Dick Blumenthal, Governor Dannel Malloy, Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, Attorney General George Jepsen, Comptroller Kevin Lembo, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, State Representative William Tong, dozens of state Senators and state Representatives and over 15,000 Democratic and progressive activists from all across Connecticut and former Senatorial candidate Matthew Oakes.
As the presidential candidates prepared to debate Wednesday night, Wayne Winsley stood outside New Haven City Hall and said: What about me?
That same day U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro invited Winsley to a televised debate. Winsley,a Republican, is challenging DeLauro for the Third U.S. Congressional District seat.
WInsley said he won't settle for just one debate. He wants at least three.
In front of about 15 supporters Wednesday, Winsley accused DeLauro of refusing to tell voters where she stands on the issues. He said DeLauro's campaign has ignored his requests for a public debate.
Jimmy Tickey, DeLauro's campaign manager, said the 11-term congresswoman will appear at two upcoming candidate forums. Tickey said he helped to set up a televised debate that he emailed Winsley about on Wednesday.
As someone who has remembers Winsley when he spoke to an anti-immigration hate group in Danbury and linked undocumented immigrants to slaves, he should be happy that DeLauro is ignoring his stupidity.
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is set to help raise funds for 5th District Republican candidate Andrew Roraback next week in Hartford. The fundraising boost may help Roraback compete with his opponent Elizabeth Esty and national Democrats, but it also plays into their campaign narrative.
Roraback, a moderate Republican state senator, has been fending off attacks from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee aligning him with conservative national Republicans like Boehner since the day after the Aug. 14 primary.
On Aug. 15 the DCCC released a video titled "Meet Tea Party Republican Andrew Roraback," which pulled footage from Republican 5th congressional district primary debates during which Roraback faced three opponents who were largely considered more socially conservative than him.
Throughout the campaign Roraback, a fiscal conservative with a moderate voting record on social and environmental issues, has said that he is a "New England Republican" who is willing to break ranks with his party when he doesn't agree.
But Democrats frequently point to Roraback's statement that he would vote to keep Boehner as House speaker. Regardless of Roraback's personal positions, that vote allows national Republicans to continue pursuing their conservative agenda, the reasoning goes.
The Chris Murphy for Senate campaign released the following...
"Just like she did against Senator Blumenthal in 2010, Linda McMahon is spending tens of millions of dollars on lies, smears, and political attack ads in an attempt to distract voters from her strong support for right-wing Republican policies like ending Social Security, privatizing Medicare, and giving millionaires like herself another massive tax cut," said Eli Zupnick spokesman for the Murphy campaign. "McMahon may be desperate to hide her deeply unpopular right-wing positions, but Chris is going to continue campaigning across Connecticut talking to middle class families about his strong record of fighting for them, their jobs, and the issues they care about."
The Connecticut U.S. Senate race is essentially tied up, with 48 percent of likely voters for Republican Linda McMahon and 47 percent for Democratic U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
Voters have about the same low opinion of professional wrestling and the U.S. Congress.
Today's results compare to the too-close-to-call results of an August 28 likely voter survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ac) University, showing McMahon with 49 percent and Murphy with 46 percent.
In today's survey, 50 percent of McMahon backers are "very enthusiastic," while 39 percent are "somewhat enthusiastic." For Murphy, 27 percent are "very enthusiastic" and 55 percent are "somewhat enthusiastic."
Men back McMahon 52 - 45 percent, while women back Murphy 50 - 44 percent. Independent voters go Republican 52 - 43 percent.
By a 45 - 41 percent margin, Connecticut voters have a favorable opinion of McMahon, compared to 47 - 35 percent August 28. Murphy gets a negative 36 - 40 percent favorability rating, down from a 38 - 30 percent positive score in August.
"Connecticut voters like Linda McMahon more than U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy. But the Democrat seems to be holding his own against the onslaught of negative advertising," said Douglas Schwartz, PhD, director of the Quinnipiac University poll.
"McMahon voters are much more likely to say they are very enthusiastic about their choice than Murphy voters, by about 2-1. While the horserace has barely changed, the images of both candidates have declined since August, as the campaign attacks have increased."
"Murphy's negatives are up 10 points and McMahon's are up 6 points. McMahon has done a good job defining Murphy, who was not well known statewide, in a negative way," Dr. Schwartz added.
Among Connecticut likely voters, 5 percent have a very positive opinion of professional wrestling, with 18 percent somewhat positive, 31 percent somewhat negative and 30 percent very negative. Only 2 percent of voters have a very positive opinion of the U.S. Congress, with 24 percent somewhat positive, 37 percent somewhat negative and 34 percent very negative.
"There is so much that could be said about the U.S. Congress and professional wrestling, but we probably shouldn't say it," Schwartz said.
A total of 84 percent of voters have seen McMahon campaign ads "very often" or "somewhat often," compared to 64 percent for Murphy. McMahon's ads are "very effective" or "somewhat effective," 66 percent of voters say, compared to 51 percent for Murphy.
"McMahon's blanketing the airwaves with TV ads appears to be working. More voters have seen her ads than Murphy's and more voters think they are effective," said Schwartz.
To recap:
People HATE wrestling
People still start to believe your lies if you have enough money to repeat your lies over and over again.
Although the number has decreased, over 10 percent of the public have not made up their mind on the senate race, which makes the upcoming debates all the more important.
Mitt Romney has ZERO chance in winning Connecticut
We know it can be hard to distinguish between Mitt Romney's and Linda McMahon's extreme, right wing plans. So we put together a game you can play during tonight's Presidential Debate - "Romney/McMahon Bingo!" Mark a square every time Romney takes an extreme, right wing position that he and McMahon both support, including "Voucher Plan For Medicare" and "Extend Tax Cuts for the Richest 1%."
According to a recent Hartford Courant story about Achievement First -Hartford's newly opened high school, "Rolling one's eyes at a teacher will get a freshman sent to the school's Reorientation Room, where Dean of School Culture Peter Uwalaka said "'they get the extra culture they need.'"
The Achievement First Family Handbook goes into far more detail about the school's discipline policy.
Having spoken with parents who have had students attending an Achievement First school, the "Reorientation Room" is a place that students go to work on improving unacceptable behaviors. Students temporarily lose the privilege of wearing the school uniform. Instead, they wear a practice shirt. Students are not allowed to communicate with their peers. Students must stay after school to reflect on their behavior issue and to write apology letters to their teammates. Because students lose transportation privileges (they have lost the trust to take a bus unsupervised), parents need to pick their child up from school. Students remain in this room until they have shown dramatic behavior improvement.
Achievement First's discipline code describes this place as, "a BIG DEAL. We are, in essence, isolating students from the rest of the school, and so it should be taken very seriously by students and teachers... [It] is a place where no student wants to go and will be a powerful tool in the establishment and maintenance of a strong, team-oriented school culture."
Reorientation Room?
Dean of School Culture?
Get the Extra Culture they need?
In a world where words have meaning and phrases have history, my first thought was; is Achievement First, Inc. incredibly insensitive or incredibly stupid?
Hundreds of professional wrestlers have died prematurely over the past 30 years and I suspect my average reader doesn't have the time or patience to be subjected to a comprehensive list. To put it into perspective, the WWE (formerly the WWF) recently put on the 1,000 episode of their show Monday Night Raw this summer. Since the first episode ran in 1993, 28 wrestlers who appeared on the program have died under the age of 45. For a sport with such a small active roster of athletes/performers, this is a staggering number of deaths. By comparison, there have only been 21 active NFL players who have died in that same period of time. Those mortality figures sound similar until you realize that there are currently 1,696 active players in the NFL and there are only about 70 active wrestlers in the WWE. Using that 70 wrestler roster as a benchmark, the WWE has seen 3% of its roster die every year for the last 19 years. I defy you to find another non-military profession in the United States that loses 3% of its workers every year.
[...]
Unlike every other major sport, wrestlers don't have a union and that has meant that they have historically been treated with the dignity and consideration normally afforded to a used handi-wipe. The WWE classifies them as "independent contractors," which is odd considering they are full time employees and under contract to exclusively wrestle for the WWE. But, this is not merely a technicality when it comes to wrestlers' well-being because, as independent contractors, the federal government views them as being self-employed. As a result, these wrestlers are not provided with any benefits and they are required to pay what is known as the self-employment tax. Thanks to the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax, when you are an employee of a company you split social security and medicare taxes with your employer so that you each pay a 6.2% share of the Social Security tax and 1.45% of the medicare tax. But, thanks to being labeled as independent contractors, pro wrestlers have to pay the full 15.3% FICA percentage, which saves the WWE millions of dollars every year.
The biggest part of this whole scam revolves around benefits, or lack thereof. Up until last year, WWE wrestlers were not required to have health insurance. When Linda McMahon began revving up for her second run at congress in 2011, the WWE mandated that all of their employees get health insurance, but said that they had to pay for it themselves. What company in the history of ever can you think of that has required its employees to pay for their own health insurance? To add literal and figurative insult to injury, the violent nature of their profession means that insurance premiums for wrestlers are through the roof. The WWE touts that it pays for wrestling-related surgeries, but anything beyond that is seen as squarely being the responsibility of the wrestler.
According to the US Small Business Administration, an independent contractor is defined as someone who, among other things: operates under a business name, has his/her own employees, maintains a separate business checking account, advertises his/her business' services, has more than one client, has own tools and sets own hours and keeps business records. On the other hand, the US SBA defines an employee as someone who: performs duties dictated or controlled by others, is given training for work to be done, and works for only one employer. Which category do you think professional wrestler's should fall into?
Why does this matter do the people of Connecticut and, by extension, the entire nation? This matters because Linda McMahon will attempt to run government with the same lack of respect for human life that she did her wrestling organization. This is a woman who has already stated at a Tea Party forum that she wants to put a "sunset provision" on Social Security. What that means is anyone's guess as she was light on specifics, but by definition a sunset provision is a measure within a statute that mandates the it will cease to exist if further legislative action is not taken by a certain point. Essentially, it would be an execution date for Social Security unless certain GOP-friendly changes were made, which in McMahon's case involve means-testing benefits and raising the age of eligibility.
Speaking from his campaign headquarters, McGee said was able to make up ground, particularly in Windsor where Mayor Don Trinks (who finished third in the August 14 primary and split the Windsor vote) withdrew from the re-vote and threw his support behind Canty, by getting more voters to the polls and old-fashioned door knocking. A large part of the campaign's ability to get people to the polls, he said, was the fact that people became aware of the race during the hearing held in response to McGee's complaint filed in superior court.
"More people came out as a result of the hearing," McGee said. "More people took seriously my mantra: Every election matters; every vote counts."
"I have family members who said they didn't vote [on August 14]. I made sure I brought them to the polls, and they brought people... Members of my fraternity came out, youth, people who just believed in me."
Saying he can't remember sleeping over the last week and a half due to tireless campaigning, McGee contributes his gains in Windsor and Hartford to hardwork, contrary to what some may believe given the nearly $40,000 pumped into support of the Hartford candidate by The Great New England Public Schools Alliance (GNEPSA) last week.
Canty, who went from being named the winner of the primary by the secretary of state in August to losing the race Tuesday, said he believes the GNEPSA contribution was the deciding factor in the election.
"$38,000 over the last four days... We couldn't match it," said Canty from the Union Street Tavern Tuesday evening. "With 150 more votes than last time when we tied, that's $200 a vote," Canty added in reference to McGee's victory margin.
Brandon McGee supporters believe it was their hard work that elevated their candidate to victory in the court-ordered revote of the 5th Assembly District, but Leo Canty's supporters believe it was the infusion of nearly $38,000 during the last four days of the campaign from an out-of-state special interest group.
McGee received 1,095 votes Tuesday to Canty's 942, according to unofficial results from Hartford and Windsor.
[...]
As he looked around the room at his family and friends, many from his church, he bristled at the notion that the money from the Greater New England Public School Alliance had any influence on his campaign efforts or the victory.
"Look I wish I had the money," McGee joked. "Because some of you would be paid today."
[...]
Down the street at Windsor's Union Street Tavern, Canty - who fought hard to get the new 5th Assembly District drawn so that Windsor residents could be represented in the General Assembly by one of their own - said it was the last-minute cash that cost him the primary.
[...]
They're a very wealthy organization that can drop $38,000 like you or I would put a quarter in a gumball machine," Canty said.
He said the effort of the GNEPSA canvassers made a difference in a race he lost by about 153 votes.
"Brandon picked up a handful of votes in District 1 and District 3 where there was a high amount of that canvassing activity," Canty said.
[...]
Canty called McGee to congratulate him and said he would support him in the race against Windsor Republican Paul Panos on Nov. 6.
Canty thought he had secured the Working Families Party ballot line. But the party, which backs progressive, pro-labor candidates, didn't collect enough signatures to get his name on the ballot.
There are some Canty supporters like Marge Conforto who said that if Canty were to lose then she planned to vote for the Republican.
Others looked at the race through a different lens.
A Canty supporter and a Hartford insider, who asked not to be identified, said there were remarks made at the two Hartford polling places that made her very angry. She said there were poll standers who were telling voters to vote for McGee because he's black and he looks like them. Then they used a term for Canty she didn't quite understand until it was explained to her. They called him a "biscuit," she said.
UPDATE 9:50 PM:
Canty says he will pursue elections complaint he filed over out of state contributions in support of McGee candidacy. #windsor #hartford— Townnewsguy via web
UPDATE: 9:15 PM Here's McGee's last video before the primary...good quality.
McGee 1,094 Canty 942, unofficial minus Hartford absentee ballots. according to McGee campaign #windsor #hartford— Townnewsguy via web
Leo Canty just addressed his supporters thanking them but Announcing he lost.— LauriePerez via web
Back in 2003...before Linda McMahon expressed any interest in running for office... the Media Education Foundation produced a film, "Wrestling With Manhood" that was a critical study of the salacious representation of women and the glorification of the abuse of women in the WWE. MEF Executive Director, Sut Jhally and anti-sexist activist, Jackson Katz laid out, in excruciating detail, the case that WWE events were promoting the debasement of women, gays and even men in ways that are difficult to ignore.
The videos are very difficult for anybody to watch...but they are especially disturbing to women because they are the most stark representations of a male world where women are diminished, defiled and dismissed.. and, thus affirms their experiences and their greatest fears. These clips are difficult...probably impossible... to explain away as "gotcha" and campaign sandbagging.
We offer these excerpts from that film, not as a campaign smear, but as an indictment separate from the comparatively trivial Senate race in Connecticut. The issues raised by "Wrestling With Manhood" need to be reckoned with... by us all. What do they say about us as a society that supposedly aspires to be just?
Linda McMahon must address these performances that made her wealthy enough to fund her own campaign...whether she wins or not. Their stain cannot be purged from our minds with a cease and desist order. There must be an accounting beyond a campaign finance report, because she was complicit in nurturing and profiting from the exploitation of the worst aspects of who we can be and have been.
This film represents something much more than a mere campaign liability. It's a shame.
Canty says he will pursue elections complaint he filed over out of state contributions in support of McGee candidacy. #windsor #hartford— 
Leo Canty just addressed his supporters thanking them but Announcing he lost.— 
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