Tea Party candidate who never caught on blames Linda McMahon’s deep pockets

But his message and his candidacy never took off. A Quinnipiac poll on Monday showed Schiff trailing Republican frontrunner Linda McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, with only 15 percent to McMahon’s 50 percent. Former Congressman Rob Simmons also was far ahead of Schiff, with 28 percent.

Schiff blamed McMahon’s huge lead on her ability to self-fund her campaign. The former fake wrestling mogul has already spent around $20 million of her own money on her campaign and has pledged to spend up to $50 million by the time it is all said and done. Schiff said that means that national Republicans have no incentive to support anyone else, because even if she loses, McMahon’s candidacy will draw significant Democratic resources to the race while leaving GOP money available for elections in other races.

Schiff was endorsed and supported by local Tea Party groups in Connecticut, but he said he could not explain why he had not received endorsements from national conservative figures such as Sen. Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who has helped launch other renegade candidates, or former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose support has become one of the most sought after blessings for conservative politicians seeking to galvanize grassroots Tea Party movement energy and support.

Palin aides did not respond to questions on the matter, while DeMint has indicated in the past that he did not think Schiff was in a position to win the primary.

A grassroots leader in the Tea Party movement in Kentucky said the answer to Schiff’s political inertia was due to his own lack of enthusiasm for the nuts and bolts of running an effective campaign.

“He didn’t put the energy in early on that he should have. I don’t think he likes campaigning much,” the activist said.

Rob Jordan, who runs the political action committee for the Tea Party-affiliated Washington-based group Freedom Works, confirmed that Schiff’s campaign was lackluster for much of the past year.

“He was saying all the right things, [but] we didn’t see a whole lot of action from him on the campaign front,” said Jordan, whose FreedomWorks PAC has endorsed Republican candidates in nine Senate races so far, including Ken Buck in Colorado, Marco Rubio in Florida and Paul in Kentucky.

McMahon spokesman Ed Patru said that Schiff’s personality may also have served to turn voters off.

“Half of Peter loves to talk; the other half of him doesn’t like to listen. I don’t think most voters found either trait particularly irresistible,” Patru said.

In response to claims by Schiff that McMahon doesn’t understand economics, Patru said that McMahon “has never claimed to be an academic theorist or a celebrity cable talk show economist. She spent 30 years in the real world building a global enterprise from a company that started with one desk.”

“She was the CEO of an NYSE traded billion dollar company that employs nearly 600 people. She understands how jobs are created and how budgets are balanced in the real world, and she clearly has a firm grasp of economic principles,” Patru said.