The so-called race for Chris Dodd's Senate seat in Connecticut appears to be winding down to what most observers thought it would be months ago when Dodd decided to retire rather than lose against Linda McMahon of WWE fame and her millions poured into the race. It was assumed popular and longtime attorney-general Richard Blumenthal would have no trouble defeating her. But Blumenthal hasn't had to really campaign in years and early on it showed. That seems to have changed in the last few weeks, simply by Blumenthal seizing on what McMahon says and calling her on it. One such issue, of many, has been her business-friendly position on the minimum wage.
It's taken awhile but some in the media are finally asking McMahon about it, such as CNN's Jessica Yellin. But to really get to the heart of the matter, Rachel Maddow steps in, as usual. Maddow calls out McMahon's denials and outright lies of what she said about reducing the minimum wage. Again, it's hard to argue with videotape even if you can rely on (most of) the media not to check.
Interestingly, Maddow praises Richard Blumenthal for aggressively calling her out on that, going on the offense. For almost all of the campaign that has not been the case, and Blumenthal has been criticized for coasting. As soon as he did in this one instance pollsters decided to give him him back his double-digit lead. It'll be interesting what the new storyline will be for local pollster Quinnipiac in their next poll with these recent developments as they had been pushing a nail-biter.
