It couldn't have happened to a dumber party:
Hartford - Republican Linda McMahon wrested her party's endorsement for the U.S. Senate nomination from rival Rob Simmons Friday night, using an aggressive floor effort to switch enough delegates on the convention floor to end the contest in a single round of voting.
"We are rebuilding and re-energizing the Republican Party in Connecticut," McMahon told delegates after the final tally, which gave her 737 delegates to Simmons' 632.
The nomination win was stunning even by the meteoric standards of the McMahon campaign, which has rocketed its candidate from political obscurity to a place in the state's most closely-watched election in just nine months powered by $16 million McMahon from a fortune made running World Wrestling Entertainment.
It also dealt a major blow to what once seemed a perfect opportunity for Simmons' political revival. The former three-term congressman from Stonington raced out to an early lead in the Republican contest to take on Sen. Chris Dodd, and later his Democratic successor on the ticket, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
At this point, you've got to give Linda McMahon the advantage for the GOP nomination. She's already said she's willing to put $50 million of her professional wrestling fortune into her campaign. She's surging in the polls leading former Congressman Rob Simmons 44-35. She has just unleashed a HUGE ad blitz in Connecticut, dwarfing Simmons by magnitudes.
Maybe Simmons can somehow wrest the nomination from her grip, but with experience like this, it's not looking good:
McMahon knows WWE's carefully scripted and staged plots well. She has occasionally been featured in them, as WWE's 16 million weekly television viewers can attest. She's been slapped to the ground by her own daughter and dropped on her head by a wrestler. Then there was the time McMahon kicked a WWE announcer between the legs.
No word if she's getting juiced up for the election battle.