She's Back!

SOUTHINGTON -- Linda McMahon kicked off her second try for U.S. Senate today at a small manufacturing company whose physical plant and young owners provided a backdrop for a campaign that is painting its candidate as a job creator, not a politician.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a proven job creator, and today I am a candidate for U.S. Senate," McMahon said.
McMahon, 62, of Greenwich, the Republican newcomer and World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder who lost to Democrat Richard Blumenthal by 12 percentage points last year, has a new staff and a new headquarters, but a message little changed from 2010.
Her new campaign is again presenting her as an outsider who understands the needs and challenges of business, a message that resonated with Republican primary voters two years ago, backed by $50 million of her personal fortune over the primary and general campaigns.

"The American dream is about opportunity and second chances," McMahon said, standing next to Jeff and Maureen Gagnon, the owners of Coil Pro, a company Jeff founded in 1997 with one employee.
As a woman who went broke with her husband, Vince McMahon, and then rebounded to build World Wrestling Entertainment into a publicly traded entertainment company, McMahon said she epitomizes that dream.
"For the past 25 years, my husband, Vince, and I have had plenty of success is our business. And we appreciate it all the more when we think back to day we filed for bankruptcy," McMahon said.
But her new campaign also is about a second opportunity in politics.
"I'm not starting from zero this time," she said after her announcement. "I do have, I think, some name recognition and recognizability, so I will have more I think of a targeted media campaign. It won't be as expansive, but it will be very targeted and focused."
Her announcement comes two years after she resigned as the chief executive officer of WWE to launch a campaign aimed at a politically wounded U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, the Democrat who eventually withdrew, giving way to Blumenthal.
She began as a curiosity -- her first interview on CNN featured a clip of her daughter, Stephanie, knocking her to the mat with a slap during a staged confrontation for a WWE show -- but McMahon quickly gained traction, becoming the favorite for the GOP nomination well before the convention in May.
But polling throughout the campaign showed she had trouble connecting with women, despite her attempt to become the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Connecticut, a state that has had two women elected as governor.