WHY CONNECTICUT IS IN PLAY: MCMAHON HAS $50 MILLION AND BALLS; BLUMENTHAL IS A STIFF

NYTIMES:

... the Democrats admit to some nervousness, in part because of the Republican he is most likely to confront next fall: the professional-wrestling impresario Linda McMahon. She promises a campaign much like her brand of entertainment, with blunt, in-your-face, emotional appeals and attacks.

And Ms. McMahon has vowed to spend as much as $50 million, about five times what Mr. Blumenthal can muster.

Mr. Blumenthal’s combat readiness has been questioned before. In 2005, Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s advisers let it be known that she would relish a challenge from the attorney general, who they said had a “glass jaw.”

Still, his halting style as he pursues the Senate seat is striking.

... The man who twice shrank from running for governor hedges, fences and revises when queried on all manner of federal issues.

Asked if he would have voted in 2008 for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, he dodged several times by saying he would have tried to amend it, then turned to an aide and said, “Have I taken a position on this?” (Three hours later, he sent word that he would have voted against it.)

Asked about President Obama’s new policy taking a nuclear strike off the table as a response in some cases to a biological, chemical or cyber attack, Mr. Blumenthal first said he supported it, then said that his “inclination” was to support the president but that “I want to understand more about it.”

And in the debate, when asked about normalizing relations with Cuba, he said he would consult Connecticut’s “Latino people, of Latino heritage, to learn what our policy should be.”

Reminded of that, he said on Thursday: “The honest answer is I hadn’t thought about it. And I was the first one to take the question. If he’d been the first one to take the question, I would’ve had a different answer.”

Mr. Blumenthal flopped in his first televised debate against an obscure primary opponent, and he is ruling out any possibility of a rematch.

He appears almost incapable of offering concise answers to even the most predictable questions, like why he is running for the Senate.

And his reliance on prosecutorial parlance and legal arcana has raised unflattering comparisons to another attorney general in a Senate race who seemed a sure winner only to lose in spectacular fashion. Some Democrats are calling him “Martha Coakley in pants,” referring to the candidate who lost the Massachusetts Senate election in January.

PREDICTION: BLUMENTHAL LOSES.

GOLLY: IT WOULD GREAT IF JOE ENDORSED MCMAHON!