Shays Blasts McMahon As Dust-Up Continues; McMahon Hits Back On Shays Votes

GROTON – In some of his harshest comments yet, former U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays said Monday that Republican Linda McMahon is “clueless,” “beyond an amateur,” and not qualified to be a United States Senator.

Shays made his remarks after McMahon said last week that she would be open to the process of potential base closures, depending on which military operations would be cut.

Shays and others said the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process could be disastrous for the U.S. submarine base in Groton and the nearby Electric Boat factory that builds nuclear submarines. The overall economic impact of the base and the factory to Connecticut is $4 billion annually and 31,000 jobs, officials said. While the base is not in any immediate danger of closure, the next round in the BRAC process is not expected to start until 2015 in a non-election year for Congress.

As Shays was criticizing McMahon, she responded Monday by hammering his votes during his 21-year career in Congress.

Later, at the state AFL-CIO convention in Hartford, McMahon said, “What I am stressing is that I will fight tooth and nail to keep our sub base open here in Connecticut because I believe it is not only central to our national defense but also to the economy.’’

She added, “I’m not worried about the process. I’m worried about fighting for the sub base.”

Shays said he is far more qualified to represent Connecticut in any potential future battles to keep the submarine base open.

“First, she’s clueless about the process,” Shays said of McMahon. “I don’t know how to say it any differently than that. And her people are clueless. Second, she doesn’t have the experience or the knowledge to know how to fight this process.”

He said that McMahon’s experience as a professional wrestling entrepreneur with Stamford-based WWE does not provide any background for handling the difficult questions on military spending and base closures.

“I think she is beyond an amateur,” Shays told reporters at the historic U.S. Submarine Veterans Club on School Street near the Electric Boat factory. ”This is an individual who has been in an arena, but it hasn’t been a real arena. It is an arena that promotes bullying, degradation of women and minorities and those who have special needs. It’s pretty incredible to think that the arena that she is in would prepare her for this [political] arena.” 

He added, “She’s not qualified to be the next senator, clearly. If you had enough debates, you would see it. That’s why she doesn’t want debates.”

At the moment, the candidates have only one more scheduled debate that is set for July 18 on the NBC 30 television affiliate in West Hartford.

The problem, Shays said, is that no one knows which bases will be on the BRAC list until after the lengthy studies are done and the recommendations are made by the Pentagon.

“This is such a basic concept,” Shays told reporters. “For her to say that she would think that BRAC provides efficiencies after we’ve gone through five of them. For her to say that she would support it, unless the sub base was on it, just blew me away.”

But McMahon blasted Shays on Monday for multiple votes that he made as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives throughout his 21-year career, including BRAC votes dating back to 1991. She said that he voted in 2002 to start the BRAC process that eventually threatened the Groton base years later. McMahon added that Shays had voted in similar fashion to U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy, the leading Democratic candidate in the race, as “typical career politicians” on votes on defense issues.

Shays, though, said that McMahon had misunderstood his final BRAC vote, saying he only approved the recommendations for base closings after the proposed sub base closure in Groton had been removed from the bill.

“Once again, she’s showing her ignorance. She’s criticizing me,” Shays said as he sat across the table from reporters.

Shays surrounded himself Monday with local officials, including Groton town mayor Heather Somers, former Groton mayor Jane Dauphinais, and former state Sen. Catherine W. Cook, a Mystic Republican who served for 14 years in the state legislature. 

“Trust me. The Pentagon, perenially, puts Groton on the list,” Cook said.

A spokeswoman for McMahon, Erin Isaac, said that the base is part of a broader battle over the federal budget.

“The discussion over how to balance spending cuts and protecting our sub base has to begin with a thoughtful look at how we got here: Congress hasn’t passed a budget in three years, there has been no meaningful attempts to cut wasteful spending. Then, along came the Super Committee with their recommendations and what did Congress do? Ignored them. Congress’ failure to act is what has led us to this point,” Isaac said. “Linda McMahon has a detailed jobs plan to balance the budget, cut spending and prioritize our nation’s defense (www.LindasPlan.com). This is how Linda McMahon will proactively protect the base – she won’t wait until it’s on the chopping block to stand up for the base.”

Concerning McMahon, Shays said, “She’s a storyteller. She refuses to have any more debates, other than two. That’s her privilege. She’s not going to sit in front of editorial boards. … When you probe beyond the surface, and really try to understand, you’ll understand that she doesn’t get it.”

The bruising 2005 battle over the submarine base was eventually won by Connecticut through the efforts of Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, then-U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd and others. Shays himself was part of “Team Connecticut” that battled the closure, but he said that Simmons had done about 50 percent of the work of the entire team. Shays said he simply wants to avoid the entire struggle in the future.

“We know that we can’t go through another round,” Shays said. “We’ve learned from the past. No new BRAC. Period. Case closed. I will fight it as hard as I can possibly fight anything.”