By Charles Desrochers
Linda McMahon and Richard Blumenthal debated in Hartford last Monday. A majority of the night saw the two leading candidates discussing either taxes or jobs but they didn’t differ on either.
McMahon and Blumenthal both said they want tax breaks for small businesses, both agreed on foreign policy, and both agreed that there are major problems with the bailout and Healthcare reform.
The first half of the debate could have been bookmarked by Linda McMahon interrupting herself or taking precious time from the beginning of her answers to address Blumenthal’s attack that she accepted government tax-cuts while cutting employees and taking a personal raise. The former WWE CEO consistently pointed out the length of Blumenthal’s tenure as Connecticut’s Attorney General, painting him as the face of incumbent politics.
The beginning of the night saw both candidates agreeing that small businesses should have better tax incentives and cuts and the talking points didn’t stray far. I doubt that anyone came away from this debate thinking any differently about a candidate than they did before. It seemed that this debate was for the conservative/independent vote. We knew that McMahon would use her conservative base to appeal to business owners and the tea party. We thought that we would see more traditionally liberal talking points from Blumenthal like the environment, education and alternative energy but instead he covered the same issues as she. In most cases they said the same thing. In the polls released last week McMahon gained her most significant ground through the independent party. It is quite possible that Blumenthal’s people thought that they had to appeal to those voters before indulging their own base. But it was a debate, so mud was thrown.
One of the first questions of the night was for Blumenthal to address the controversy he faced earlier this summer when he claimed he served in Vietnam. Surprisingly, this was one of the few times he actually apologized outright for his statements. Throughout the answer his hands were shaking and his voice had a tremble to it. All traces of his cheshire cat smile had vanished for a moment as he said that he had made a mistake.
Blumenthal recovered from this awkward moment though when he mentioned McMahon’s gaffe about not knowing the minimum wage but lowering its lowering.
Mentioning it once is good debate tactics and twice is pestering, but Blumenthal was under McMahon’s skin so much with this issue and the WWE’s tax cuts that it seemed she was rebutting when he hadn’t even mentioned them. This could just be because she has less experience in debates and her political poker face hasn’t been as honed, but Blumenthal should get some level of credit for seeing a chink in her armor and taking advantage.
There was certainly ammunition left on the table for both parties. Blumenthal made sure to mention the WWE’s labor issues and the scandals surrounding the drug culture among wrestlers but he never pushed the issue as much as he could have. McMahon never mentioned the thousands of cases that Blumenthal has brought forward and never scrutinized how public he has been in his cases against major companies with seemingly no relation to Connecticut like Microsoft.
On a textual level the bout was even. Neither said anything of substance but on appearances the winner is a matter of preference.
Blumenthal kept his cool throughout the debate. His perfect moment could have been when McMahon went on a tangent about how entrepreneurs create business after asking what he knew about creating jobs. His answer was simple. He leaned to the microphone barely holding in his giggles and said he didn’t want to be an entrepreneur; he wanted to be a senator that would help them.
McMahon didn’t have such a moment but for the entire night her southern drawl was in full affect and because they were debating the issues her party is most comfortable with it seemed that the ideas they were agreeing on were mostly hers. So in that sense, she won.
Blumenthal didn’t argue for his true agenda and he didn’t really argue against McMahon’s. Despite being behind in the polls – if not only by 3 points – McMahon not only has the momentum but she also has the voters that Blumenthal needs to sway in order to take the election. If I were Blumenthal I would rally my liberal base before going fishing for conservatives and independents. Pandering to the swing vote is always a good idea but are we sure he has enough democrats behind