In a revelation that's at the very least embarrassing (and at very the worst, potentially illegal), Democrat Richard Blumenthal's campaign staff apparently coordinated with Planned Parenthood to dig up misogynist images from the World Wrestling Entertainment archives.
According to an email leaked to Politico's Ben Smith, a Democratic consultant named Andrew Grossman told a Blumenthal staffer that Planned Parenthood was seeking "misogynistic photos of women and WWE."
"Planned Parenthood wants to hit LM hard on it," press staffer Marcy Stech said in an e-mail to her fellow campaign staffers and Kate Hansen, spokeswoman for Connecticut Democrats. "What do we got?"
For more than a week, the state Democratic party has been slamming McMahon and the WWE for coordinating their PR efforts, which the party says violated federal election law.
McMahon spokesman Ed Patru seized on this morning revelations in Politico. "It was just yesterday that the Blumenthal-funded state Democratic Party filed a frivolous complaint alleging coordination - despite the fact that they had no evidence,'' Patru said in a statement.
"Today, there is clear and incriminating evidence that Dick Blumenthal is not only engaged in potentially illegal coordination, but that he is a politician who will stop at nothing to hold onto power."
UPDATE: The Blumenthal campaign says there's nothing potentially illegal about its contact with Planned Parenthood. Exchanging the informational email was no different than "scheduling a joint press conference together,'' said Ty Matsdorf, Blumnethal spokesman.
The campaign and Planned Parenthood weren't coordinating on a paid ad blitz, Matsdorf added. The information was simply being collected as part of a social media outreach effort, he said.
But focusing on the email obscures the "real issue" about McMahon's record, Matsdorf said. WWE produced content that was "demeaning [and] sexually explicit,'' he said. "That's the real issue."
FURTHER UPDATE:
Planned Parenthood Action Fund released this statement:
"For his entire career, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has been a strong and outspoken advocate for women and women's rights, and women in Connecticut know that he will stand up for them in the US Senate. That is why the Planned Parenthood Action Fund supports his candidacy.
"On the other hand, Linda McMahon has no track record of supporting women's rights and she ran a business, which degraded and exploited women.
"Despite spending tens of millions of her own fortune on her failing Senate campaign, Linda McMahon is trailing Blumenthal, and her campaign would rather discuss non-issues than the real issues facing the women of Connecticut, including access to affordable quality health care."