Internet videos critical of McMahon’s tenure at World Wrestling still on GOP rival’s website

Dems in Senate race: Let’s go to the videotape

WASHINGTON — If Democrats need any help running against former wrestling executive Linda McMahon in Connecticut, they need look no further than one-time Republican rival Rob Simmons’ website.

In one online video — still posted on Simmons’ YouTube page — women in various states of undress grope each other during one of McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment programs. In another, Simmons’ now defunct campaign notes that the McMahon family yacht carries a derogatory name for women. In a third, the campaign names entertainers who wrestled during a decade when McMahon’s company did not test for drugs who have since died from health issues related to substance abuse.

The Internet may be Democratic candidate Richard Blumenthal’s best tool as he criticizes McMahon’s tenure at WWE, her family’s company. In videos across the Web, viewers can see McMahon smack her daughter, her husband use a racial epithet and one entertainer simulating sex with a corpse.

Simmons dropped his Senate GOP primary bid against McMahon this week but has said he doesn’t believe she can win in November. The videos on his website may play factor.

McMahon spokesman Ed Patru called the videos a distraction.

“Her opponents will try to derail her by focusing on wrestling, but that strategy has been playing out for the past eight months and it hasn’t worked,” he said.

Democrat Jerry Brown says he has $20.6 million on hand in his bid to return as California governor and is saving his money for what surely will be a costly general election fight.

His campaign reported Thursday that it raised nearly $7 million and spent about $260,000 in the last two months. So far this year, he has spent $400,000.

Brown, the state’s attorney general and former governor, faces no serious Democratic challenger in the June 8 primary.

Meanwhile, his would-be Republican rivals have spent millions on their heated race for the gubernatorial nomination.

Former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, a billionaire, has given her campaign $68 million from her personal fortune, while state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a multimillionaire, has given $24 million.

Independent Timothy Cahill on Thursday accused Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick of playing politics with terrorism and pandering to the Muslim community by meeting with its leaders and expressing support for some of their requests.

In a statement, the state treasurer and 2010 gubernatorial candidate noted Patrick met with more than 1,000 Muslim leaders last weekend and indicated support for a variety of their initiatives, including having law enforcement officers meet with leaders to expand cultural awareness.

The statement was one of the strongest yet from Cahill, himself a former Democrat now courting conservative voters in what is distilling into a three-way race with Patrick and Republican Charles Baker. The most recent poll in the race showed Patrick opening a double-digit lead on Baker, with Cahill plummeting following a $1 million negative ad blitz by the Republican Governors Association.

A spokesman for Patrick accused Cahill of fear-mongering.

“Deval Patrick is not going to be lectured by a politician who equates meeting with over 1,000 members of the Muslim-American community with ‘playing politics with terrorism,’” Alex Goldstein said.

Quick hits:

— Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire is urging voters to support former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte’s Republican primary bid. Gregg decided against seeking another term and, like most Washington Republicans, is backing Ayotte for the open Senate seat over businessman Bill Binnie and attorney Ovide Lamontagne.

— Sen. John McCain planned to oppose a repeal of a ban on gays serving openly in the military — and he is urging members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to cast recorded votes on a repeal measure. If the committee were to support the repeal without a public vote, McCain could face questions about how he voted.

— Nevada judge has granted a temporary restraining order sought by the state’s top election official to block political advertisements from an out-of-state organization. A judge agreed that Virginia-based Alliance for America’s Future was running ads supporting Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Sandoval without registering as a political action committee.

Associated Press writers Glen Johnson in Boston and Juliet Williams in Sacramento contributed to this report.