TMCnet News
McMahon, Murphy's inner circles a sharp contrast [Connecticut Post, Bridgeport](Connecticut Post (Bridgeport) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oct. 06--In her second attempt to win election to the U.S. Senate, Greenwich millionaire Linda McMahon has assembled a team of the most aggressive, take-no-prisoners Republican political operatives that money can buy. Among the advisers she's hired are consultants associated with some of the GOP's most successful negative campaigns ever: the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans attacks on U.S. Sen. John Kerry when he was the Democratic presidential candidate, and the so-called Willie Horton TV ad of 1988, credited with helping defeat Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. On the other side, 5th District Congressman Chris Murphy began his campaign with a much smaller team of advisers, many of them home-grown without a lot of experience in high-stakes races. But in the face of a withering TV assault from McMahon that took its toll on Murphy's approval ratings, the Democrat has now ceded some control of his campaign to Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee operatives from Washington, including its deputy political director, who were rushed to Connecticut to bolster his operation. McMahon's campaign was well-primed to go after Murphy right after the Aug. 14 primary, and pursue him it did, airing a blitz of TV ads seeking to portray him as financially irresponsible in his personal life and less than diligent in his attention to his congressional duties. The Democrat's initial responses were halting and inconsistent. "I'm not sure if (Murphy's staff) knew, but they maybe should have been prepared to answer the charges," said Jessica Taylor, senior analyst for the nonpartisan, Washington-based Rothenberg Political Report. With his retooled staff, Murphy has regained the momentum with some attack ads of his own, hitting McMahon on Social Security and how she ran her family's wrestling business, Stamford-based WWE. Nonetheless, there remains a stark contrast between the two campaign operations. McMahon has spent $12 million, her opponent a bit more than $3 million, according to Federal Elections Commission filings that will be updated Oct. 15. The next report will undoubtedly show that McMahon has spent fresh millions. Her staff is larger and gets paid substantially more. Murphy's staff includes 10 people listed as making between $1,400 and $3,000 a month; McMahon has three employee paid $10,000-$12,000 a month and 17 others receiving between $3,500 and $8,500 a month. McMahon has a core of more than 20 full-time employees, most of whom have been on the payroll all year, plus more than 100 hourly workers, primarily young people called upon in recent months to appear at public events to support her. Murphy's full-time team includes about 15, about half of whom joined the campaign since June. Even their offices reflect this contrast. Murphy's headquarters is in an abandoned piano showroom nestled between a Town Fair Tire and an Edible Arrangements franchise in a Rocky Hill strip mall. It's a single, wide-open room with desks spread around and a few smaller offices on the periphery. The faded remnants of a "Falcetti Music" sign can be seen above the front door, all that remains of the recently shuttered business. McMahon's North Haven campaign headquarters is on the second floor of a sleek, modern office building with one-way glass and a warren of rooms and cubicles beyond the reception area. McMahon's and Murphy's staffs declined comment for this story. But it appears inevitable that the final month of the campaign is likely to be a high-decibel fusillade of TV ads, mailings, news releases, online videos and impromptu news conferences. With both parties hoping to gain control of the U.S. Senate -- Democrats now have a 53-47 majority -- Connecticut's once-reliable blue-state status is being tested. TEAM MCMAHON McMahon's roster of advisers detailed in FEC reports reads like a who's-who of Republican consultants, not only top operatives from the state and the region but veterans of presidential campaigns, including the former head speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. At the top is Corry Bliss, McMahon's campaign manager, a lawyer who's been paid $210,000 since signing on in August 2011. He ran an unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial race in Vermont in 2010 that political scientists there called notable for its negative attacks. Former Vermont Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie and Bliss wrote letters of apology to settle a libel lawsuit filed by a developer for their attacks during the campaign against Democratic candidate Peter Shumlin, now the state's governor. On the payroll are Connecticut political veterans, including Tom Scott, the conservative former state senator from Milford who led the 1991 uprising against the state income tax that brought 40,000 protesters to the state Capitol. Scott joined the campaign in February, making $13,000 a month plus a bonus of $26,000 after McMahon won the Republican endorsement at the party's May convention. Sullivan & LeShane, a high-octane lobbying and public relations firm directly across from the Capitol complex in Hartford, led by Patrick Sullivan and his wife, Paddi LeShane, is being paid about $25,000 a month for providing McMahon with strategy. Between August of last year and the last FEC filing deadline in July, the firm earned about $348,000 from McMahon. Sullivan declined comment. Then there are McMahon's nationally known opposition researchers and advisers, including Larry McCarthy, head of McCarthy Hennings Media Inc. of Washington, D.C. As of late June, the company had been paid about $220,000, of which $143,350 came in the month of June. McCarthy, a major figure in the controversial Super PAC, Restore Our Future, was central to the attack ad against Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor under whose administration a convicted murder, Willie Horton, was released on a furlough, failed to return and was eventually arrested on assault and rape charges. Advancing Strategies LLC of Midlothian, Va., was paid more than $760,000 between July 2011 and the last FEC reporting deadline. Its president, Christopher J. LaCivita, was an adviser to the Swift Boat Veterans group that challenged Kerry's Vietnam War record. Bently Elliott, a New Canaan communications consultant who was Reagan's lead speechwriter, has been paid $78,000 since joining McMahon's campaign in January. He declined to discuss his role on the campaign. McMahon also has paid more than 100 hourly staffers up to $1,000 each in recent months for participating in campaign events throughout the state. Most have received one-time checks of a few hundred dollars. Her fulltime staff includes a new spokesman, Todd Abrajano, who joined McMahon after a recent GOP primary in Missouri. Previously, Abrajano worked in Kansas during a targeted race in 2004; and for Republican Ross Garber, the party's unsuccessful candidate for Connecticut state treasurer in 2002. Also on staff are Erin M. Isaac and Katie Bohnett of Tallahassee, Fla., who have been paid $12,000 and $6,000 a month, respectively, since last November; Justin Clark of West Hartford, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley's campaign manager in 2010 who's making $10,000 a month; and Katherine Duffy of New Haven, who's on the payroll for $8,500 a month. Sunghi Frauen of Greenwich, the campaign treasurer who joined the campaign in late June, makes $10,000 a month. There were another 15 employees paid between $3,500 and $7,000 a month. Many on McMahon's team are new from her 2010 race. "She certainly has retooled her campaign team," said Taylor. "She's a businesswoman so there had to be some cost-benefit analysis and she brought in a different team of advisers. That's part of what has made her candidacy and it's a race we're watching closely." TEAM MURPHY When Chris Murphy's car rolled up to a Meriden nursing home for a campaign event last week, two staffers from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington popped out of the vehicle with him. While his campaign manager since May 2011, Kenneth Curran of Waterbury, remains on the job for about $5,500 a month, employees from the DSCC and the office of U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state are strengthening Murphy's Rocky Hill headquarters. Tim Tagaris, the former Internet director for the Service Employees International Union, who helped engineer Ned Lamont's successful 2006 Democratic primary against U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, has made about $63,500 advising Murphy, as of the FEC July filing. Murphy has paid about $120,000 to Washington communications and media advisors Karl Struble and David Eichenbaum, who have worked on Democratic campaigns, including those of Murray and Murphy's previous House races. Murphy has three fund-raising contractors: Blue State Digital, whose clients have included the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the NAACP and the Communication Workers of America; Allison Baker Griner, a Washington-based planner of Democratic events; and H.M. Consulting, which works for Democrats including U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado. Those firms were paid a total of about $372,000 as of the July FEC deadline. Murphy's core staff includes spokesman Ben Marter, the communications director for former U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey of Colorado. Marter is not listed in the current FEC filings. Spokeswoman Taylor Lavender of Norwalk, a former aide to U.S. Rep Jim Himes, makes about $2,700 a month. Karyn Brockman, the finance director, is paid $6,800 a month. Since around the time the DSCC began sponsoring issue ads directed against McMahon in mid-September, Eli Zupnick, press secretary for Murray, has become the lead campaign spokesman. Also new to Murphy's team is Anne Caprara, deputy political director of the DSCC, whose chairman is Murray. Taylor, of The Rothenberg Report, said it's not that unusual for national party leaders in Washington to parachute staff members to states with tight contests. "But it does reflect that this is a closer race than Democrats initially expected," she said in a recent phone interview. Last week's Quinnipiac University poll of 1,696 likely voters showed the Senate race is basically tied heading into the crucial final weeks. On Friday, The Rothenberg Report, which previously had the Connecticut Senate race leaning Democrat, changed its status to a "toss up." [email protected]; 860-549-4670; http://twitter.com/KenDixonCT; http://www.facebook.com/kendixonct.hearst; http://blog.ctnews.com/dixon/ ___ (c)2012 the Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, Conn.) Visit the Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, Conn.) at www.ctpost.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |