McMahon, Blumenthal go at it in last debate

New London - Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Linda McMahon clashed in their final televised debate Tuesday night, attacking each other's credibility before an unruly, partisan crowd.

The mood at the Garde Arts Center was testy from the outset, befitting what has become a close and hard-fought campaign for the U.S. Senate.

"I think the question is, if she has treated the people who work for her the way she has, how will she treat the people who vote for her?" Blumenthal said in a closing statement that invoked his sharp denunciations of McMahon's business practices as the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment.

McMahon, slamming Blumenthal's misstatement of his military service record, threw the longtime attorney general's insistence that "the people of Connecticut know me" back at him.

What voters know, she said, is that Blumenthal "has trouble telling the truth."

Blumenthal has misstated his service during the Vietnam War, falsely suggesting that he served in that country, McMahon noted, and had also denied that a fundraiser he attended in Vancouver was actually convened for that purpose.

The two candidates also traded barbs about taxes and regulation throughout the debate, which was sponsored by The Day and WTNH-News 8.

Blumenthal staunchly defended the Obama administration's health insurance reforms, saying they would help prevent vulnerable workers and children from losing coverage when they get sick.

McMahon slammed Blumenthal's answer as naive, suggesting that the attorney general didn't understand how the new prohibitions preventing insurers from dropping some categories of their clients from coverage would lead to higher costs.

"I think we need to understand what the consequences of passing regulations are, and you don't," McMahon said. "You don't have that clarity."

Blumenthal made his most pointed attack of any of the three debates on the most controversial aspects of McMahon's treatment of WWE workers, especially the professional wrestlers themselves. They are classified as independent contractors in agreements that include a standard clause releasing the corporation of responsibility in the event of untimely death.

"The people of Connecticut have to ask whose side each of these candidates have been on," Blumenthal said. "My opponent has not only marketed sex and violence to children, but she actually paid hundreds of millions of dollars" to lobby in Washington against restrictions on WWE business.

That figure is not correct, and Blumenthal corrected himself in a meeting with reporters after the debate, saying he had intended to say "hundreds of thousands."

McMahon countered by saying she was pleased that WWE content is now less risque than in prior years, but also suggested that Blumenthal's condemnation of the business was "insulting" to its fans.

"We can always change the channel," McMahon said. "And I think it's insulting to the millions of people who watch WWE every week and are entertained by it to suggest that somehow it is less than quality entertainment."

That line brought audible chuckles from the large crowd in the seats of the Garde Arts Center, which was a rarity. Most of the other cheers and jeers came in support of McMahon and at Blumenthal's expense, while moderator Ann Nyberg tried with decreasing success to bring the audience back into line.

Blumenthal did not let the issue drop.

"I can't believe that I just heard Mrs. McMahon brag about this wellness policy at WWE," he said. "She requires all wrestlers to sign a death clause that absolves WWE of all responsibility if wrestlers are killed in the ring and if the company is at fault. It absolves her company of all responsibility.

"That wellness policy is not working too well," he added, saying that seven current or former WWE performers have died outside the ring since McMahon began her Senate campaign last year.

McMahon repeatedly expressed her pride in the family company, of which she and her husband, Vince, are the largest shareholders, and which now has a market value of more than $1 billion.

The business started as a "traveling road show," she said, and has grown into an employer of more than 500, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and whose content is seen around the world.

When WTNH political correspondent Mark Davis read a question from a viewer deploring the company's "sleazy" content and "degradation" of women, McMahon would concede little: "I think there were times where we pushed the envelope."

As for the "death clauses," McMahon said the contracts were not an indication that wrestlers would die because of the performances they give the WWE.

"There is absolutely a program in place to help the men and women in WWE, these performers who are in the ring," McMahon said, referring to the company's "wellness policy." The policy includes a testing regime for steroids and other drugs, as well as nutritional and other forms of health counseling.

As for the clause releasing WWE from responsibility for the deaths of performers, she said: "The consequences of death is a very sad thing, when that happens, but those were not consequences as a result of ring performance."

As the two campaigns entered what will apparently be their final head-to-head debate, polls continued to show a tight race. A Fox News poll of likely voters released earlier Tuesday showed Blumenthal with a lead of six percentage points, 49 percent to McMahon's 43.

Just after the debate ended, the Blumenthal campaign released a snippet of news: The candidate would report raising $1.6 million in campaign contributions in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, and had also loaned his campaign $500,000 of his own funds.

McMahon, who has paid for almost all of her campaign herself, had yet to announce her fundraising and spending, but she is expected to be well above the $21 million in spending she has already reported.

t.mann@theday.com