Linda McMahon’s Republican Problem.

Opinion polls in the last two weeks have painted starkly different pictures of the race for the United States Senate in Connecticut between Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Linda McMahon.  Rasmussen had Blumethal ahead by only 3 percent.  Quinnipiac put Blumenthal up 25 points.  His lead is likely somewhere in that wide gulf.  It will persist if McMahon does not bring home Republicans.  She’ll need all of them if she’s to make a competitive run at Blumenthal in the next 6 months.

The obstacle she faces in winning the near-unanimous support of fellow party members is summarized in the most recent column by The National Review’s Rich Lowry. After a discourse on some lewd, coarse story lines in the long-running World Wrestling Entertainment’s television programming that included star turns by various McMahons, including the candidate, Lowry summarizes his regret at the decline of standards with this lethal paragraph:

There was a time when association with something so vulgar would have foreclosed the possibility of public office. But we’ve come a long way since Harry Truman was looked down upon for being a haberdasher. Judgment and discretion aren’t what they used to be in business, entertainment, or politics, fields where profits, ratings, and success tend to trump all other values.

Lowry speaks for a chunk of  Republican voters–not enough to have provided a victory to Rob Simmons in a primary–who will be difficult, maybe impossible, to reconcile themselves with the source of the McMahon fortune.  McMahon needs to address those Republicans more directly than she has.  The lull between her May 21st convention victory and the approaching deadline for the collection of signatures to force a primary that Peter Schiff is trying to meet would be the time to do it.

The business side of a vast entertainment company requires an intimate knowledge of programming policies and choices.  McMahon says she was in charge.  If she regrets some of the decisions, she should  say so in clear, declarative sentences.  If she doesn’t, that could also provide a compelling explanation on the nature of American popular culture in these times.