Linda McMahon Makes Her Case In Seymour

Valley Independent Sentinel

Joseph Cole

February 26, 2010

Seymour - For a former executive in a company made famous for its bombastic use of folding chairs and human heads, Linda McMahon is surprisingly "handled."

McMahon, the ex-CEO of Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment, is competing with former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons and Peter Schiff for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Dodd Chris Dodd.

During an appearance Thursday night in front of the Seymour Town Republican Committee at the town's community center, McMahon took questions from the public - but inquiries from the sole reporter attending the event were eventually shut down by a press wrangler after McMahon's speech. ...

The well-funded campaign has tried, in general, to seal off McMahon from reporters. Rather than alert the press to public events, even after repeated requests, it often posts YouTube videos after the fact and distributes the link to the media instead.

McMahon, a first-time candidate, has in the past had to backtrack after answering impromptu press questions.

On Thursday, Seymour resident Al Yagovane repeatedly asked McMahon about her views of outsourcing American jobs to foreign countries - a practice that helped to kill the once thriving manufacturing base of the lower Valley.

McMahon said that incentives have to be in place to make American job creation and retention appealing to corporations.

"It's not jobs created through stimulus money, those are temporary jobs." McMahon said. "If we get the money to the private sector, those are the self-sustaining jobs."

McMahon's WWE has had its share of economic ups and downs over the years.

Some of that money comes from selling merchandising and licensing rights to corporations such as Mattel. The last of Mattel's U.S. factories closed in 2002. A reporter raised that question, with additional questions from Yagovane.

McMahon said she can't speak for WWE's current licensing policies, as she has stepped down from her position there to commit to the Senate race.

Furthermore, the WWE has no say in how or where Mattel operates, she said.

McMahon said she would be interested in legislation that created enticing incentives for any company to bring operations back to the United States.

She also noted that when the WWE performs abroad, all of the profits come back to the company.

Follow-up questions were shut down by McMahon's press person, saying the candidate had to talk to other people in the room.

Yagovane said her answers to his questions about outsourcing were somewhat generic and that he wasn't entirely satisfied. ...

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