Linda McMahon - Biography of the Former US Senate Candidate

Linda McMahon
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Linda McMahon was born Linda Edwards on October 4, 1948, in New Bern, North Carolina. When she was 13 years old, she met 16-year-old Vince McMahon at church. The couple married in 1966, right after she graduated high school. She joined her husband at East Carolina University and earned a BS Degree in French and a certificate to teach. In 1970, Shane McMahon was born and their daughter Stephanie followed in 1976. Shane married former WWE commentator Marissa Mazzola and Stephanie married WWE Superstar Triple H.

Pre-WWE Career

After the birth of Shane, Linda McMahon became a paralegal at the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington where she learned about intellectual property rights and contract negotiations. The family moved to West Hartford where she helped with many of the logistics of Capitol Wrestling (known as the WWF) while Vince was away promoting his father's business. In 1979, the family moved to Massachusetts when they purchased the Cape Cod Coliseum. The family founded Titan Sports, Inc. in 1980 and two years later purchased Capitol Wrestling. Around this time, Linda and her family settled in Greenwich, Connecticut.

WWE Expansion

With the purchase of Capitol Wrestling, the family owned the World Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE) which was the dominant wrestling promotion in the Northeast. At that point, the company had only 13 employees. By the time Linda resigned as CEO of the company in 2009, the company had over 500 employees spread across eight offices in five different countries.

Running for US Senate

Upon resigning as CEO of WWE, Linda McMahon announced that she was going to run for US Senate as a Republican in the state of Connecticut. She also promised that she would not be accepting PAC or special interest money for her campaign. The seat she was running for was held by five-term Senator Chris Dodd. Following several controversies, Chris Dodd announced that he wouldn't seek a sixth term. Linda went on to win the Republican party nomination and faced Democrat Richard Blumenthal in the general election for the seat.

WWE Legacy: The Good and Bad

The record of WWE became a focal part of the campaign. On the good side of the ledger, the company had done a tremendous amount of charitable work. However, her critics point to the fact that she helped run a company that peddled questionable content to children, classifies wrestlers as independent contractors instead of employees, and has seen many of their former stars die at a young age.

Linda's Positions

According to her campaign website, she believes that people and not the government create jobs. She feels that deficit spending must end and that the bailout culture must come to an end. She thinks that real health care reform must address rising prices and she is opposed to cap-and-trade energy policy. Linda McMahon supports competition and choice through charter schools, as opposed to card check legislation, and is pro-choice. She also supports a three-day waiting period so legislators have a chance to read the bills they will be voting on.

The 2010 Election

In the weeks leading up to the election, WWE launched a campaign called Stand Up for WWE due to what Vince perceived as the media and politicians taking cheap shots at his company. One of the big issues was the question of whether people could wear WWE merchandise to the election booth. While Vince and the WWE won that battle, Linda eventually lost the war. Richard Blumenthal beat her to win the seat 55% to 43%.

The 2012 Election

Linda McMahon didn't stay down for long as she almost immediately was back in the political arena, this time for the seat that Joe Lieberman resigned from. Two years later, she lost in her second attempt to become a Senator representing the state of Connecticut to Chris Murphy. Amazingly, the voting results by percentage were 55-43 again. There are several reports that she spent over $90 million on the campaigns for those two losses.

(Sources used include: Linda2010.com, wwe.com, The New York Times, Sex, Lies, and Headlocks by Shaun Assael and Mike Mooneyham)