Republican Linda McMahon is encouraging Connecticut residents to vote for President Barack Obama, as long as they also vote for her.
The McMahon campaign is leaving door-hangers at the houses of Connecticut voters portraying the Republican Senate candidate and the Democratic president as a pair who “will fight for us.”
“Vote Barack Obama for President and vote Linda McMahon for Senate,” say the door-hangers, which were first reported by Talking Points Memo. The text is accompanied by a picture of Obama and a picture of McMahon.
The McMahon campaign previously ran a television ad featuring Connecticut residents who planned to split their vote, voting for Obama at the top of the ticket and McMahon for Senate.
In a state as blue as Connecticut, crossover votes are essential for any Republican to be elected, explained McMahon’s communications director Todd Abrajano when the television ad came out. The goal of the ad, he said, was to remind voters that it was all right to split their ticket.
The door-hangers appear to take that message a step further by actually encouraging people to vote for Obama, so long as they bring McMahon along too.
McMahon herself is a Romney supporter. She and her husband, World Wrestling Entertainment chairman and CEO Vince McMahon, donated $75,000 apiece to Restore Our Future, one of the super PACs supporting Romney, according to Federal election Commission filings.
President Obama has endorsed McMahon’s Democratic opponent, Rep. Chris Murphy, even cutting a television ad for him — his first ad for any 2012 Senate candidate.
The McMahon campaign denied that the Senate hopeful was in any way trying to distance herself from her party’s presidential nominee.
“Linda McMahon enthusiastically supports Governor Romney for president,” said Abrajano.
“This door-hanger is only going to known supporters of President Obama because Congressman Murphy is shamefully telling them that it’s illegal to split their ticket. We are simply educating Democrats who may also support Linda that they can split their ticket. It’s well known that there are thousands of Democrats across Connecticut who will be voting for President Obama and Linda McMahon on the independent party line, and those Democrats are choosing Linda McMahon over Congressman Murphy because she’s the only candidate in the race with a plan to create jobs and cut middle-class taxes.”
“This door-hanger is clearly not an endorsement of President Obama,” he added.
Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for the Murphy campaign, called the allegation that they were advising voters that ticket splitting was illegal “a complete lie” and decried the door-hangers as dirty politics.
“This is a desperate and dirty 11th hour trick by Linda McMahon to try to pull the wool over voters’ eyes and make them forget that she endorsed Mitt Romney and supports his right-wing Republican policies,” Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for Murphy, told The Daily Caller.
“President Obama is on televisions across the state asking voters to support Chris Murphy, and we are confident that they are not going to be fooled by McMahon’s latest bizarre campaign trick.”