"If this is an effective way to reach an important segment of the voting population, women, then we're happy to do it."
Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for Linda McMahon, former wrestling executive and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Connecticut, on why she's on Pinterest
Defending Linda's pin of 50 Shades of Grey as a favorite book, Murtagh pointed to the book's popularity among the women McMahon hopes to reach. He added, "Look, Ann Romney pinned Anna Karenina, and everyone knows what a slut that Russian woman was. It doesn't mean Anna Karenina is a role model for Ann Romney!"
Linda McMahon is no stranger to controversy, and she has taken up the issue of Anastasia Steele and 50 Shades of Grey with vigor. "It's important for me to know what's important to the women in Connecticut," she said. "I've been in dozens of homes for my meet and greets with women, and believe me, they adore this book. And they love Anastasia, an innocent virgin." She fondly recounted the time her daughter Stephanie debuted as the sweet and innocent virgin daughter of father Vince on the family wrestling network; she got stalked and abducted by a character called "The Undertaker," before being rescued by "Stone Cold Steve Austin."
"This is what women love to see," McMahon said. "The damsel in distress story is as old as the hills." When asked about the plot line where Stephanie played a domestic violence victim with the audience positioned to cheer on her scripted (and real-life) husband, "Triple H," McMahon brushed it aside as fantasy, play-acting. As for the sequence where her husband Vince McMahon orders a woman wrestler to strip, get on her knees, and bark like a dog as the audience yells "slut," McMahon said, "How different is this from Anastasia Steele? It's not real abuse, it's acting out a fantasy, harmless role playing, totally consensual."
McMahon boasts that WWE has created "powerful heroic female characters" who stand up to "bad guys" who always "pay a price" for their attacks on women. "Our television audience would not be nearly 40% female if we were degrading women," Brian Flinn, WWE Senior VP for Marketing and Communications claimed.
When asked what she has in common with the women she has met in Connecticut, given that she is a multi-millionaire who lives in a $12 million mansion in Greenwich, McMahon bristles. "I'm a mom. I'm a grandmother. I've been a working mother. I've been a stay-at-home mom. I've faced a lot of issues they have. I get it." After finally releasing tax returns showing that she and Vince had $30 million in annual income, she rushed to action, insisting she was very poor before she became very, very rich.
"You may not know, but before I had success in business, before I helped create hundreds of jobs here in Connecticut, my husband and I had to declare bankruptcy, and we lost our home," McMahon says in a TV ad with mournful background music. "Those were difficult times for my family. And I will never forget the lessons I learned about hard work, luck and never giving up."
McMahon's "difficult times" include a cheating husband. She is honest about Vince McMahon's bad behavior. In a 2002 interview with Playboy, Vince McMahon defended the F-word because it "refers to my favorite thing to do in life." Of his Boss Hoss motorcycle, he said: "Having that much power between your legs is like having a 12-foot penis." He admitted to serial infidelities and boasted that he is a "giver," both in the wrestling ring and sexually with women.
"What woman hasn't been angry at an unfaithful husband? Vince is very manly, and he has sexual desires he sometimes just can't control. It's his animal instinct, and I have forgiven him," McMahon said.
What about that powerboat the McMahons own, "Sexy Bitch"? A McMahon spokesman claimed that there are lots of outrageously named boats in Boca Raton, where the boat is kept. Linda McMahon joked that Vince named the boat for her, and "boys will be boys with their toys."
Linda McMahon defends her wealthy buddies like Donald Trump. "Rich people like to hang out with other rich people. And why shouldn't they? They've earned it." Plus, they are giving her lots of money for her campaign. She cites Jack Welch, retired chairman of General Electric, "Oh, Jack is a love. He came up from nowhere. And Suzy, his gorgeous, sexy wife. They're a lot like Vince and me. We totally relate."
