What Dodd’s Withdrawal Means for Linda McMahon Out-of-State Watchers: Nothing

Out here in California, the national news of the retirement of Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut did not get into the intricacies of the race for his would-be successors. With amusement, I noticed that the report on National Public Radio came from NPR affiliate WSHU, the station at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. This is where Linda McMahon is on the board of trustees. It is also where her husband Vince — who two nights ago kicked Bret Hart in the nuts on Monday Night Raw — was the keynote speaker at 2007 commencement exercises.

And that raises my main point about the impact of the Dodd withdrawal on those of us outside the Commonwealth State who are watching the McMahon candidacy with non-voting interest. For those looking for inside-politics insight, I recommend sites such as Capitol Report (http://ctcapitolreport.com), which links voraciously and often wittily to coverage by others (including, from time to time, this blog).

But for those of us primarily concerned with the opportunity presented by Linda McMahon’s political ambitions to erect a new platform of scrutiny for the outrageous culture of death promoted by her industry, professional wrestling, nothing changes. Whether McMahon does or does not win the Republican Senate nomination, or the general election, is not my chief concern. Whether people in Connecticut are fully aware of the record of this candidate is my chief concern.

Toward that end, I posted today the third-part of a six-part series on the ten wrestlers from the 1991 WrestleMania show who went on to die before their 50th birthdays. The question I pose — how a candidate for high office spending tens of millions of dollars of a personal fortune so accrued can plausibly defend her performance in the area of occupational health and safety — remains, with or without Chris Dodd.

Irv Muchnick