Democrats file FEC complaint about "Stand Up For WWE" campaign, both sides respond with more attack ads and mailers

The Washington Post breaks the news that Nancy DiNardo, the chair of the Connecticut Democrats, has filed a Federal Election Commission complaint about Vince McMahon's "Stand Up For WWE" campaign, which she claims is evidence of WWE illegally coordinating with Linda McMahon's Senate campaign:

Linda McMahon's $50 million attack machine is calling in corporate reinforcements with no respect for the law or the voters of Connecticut

DiNardo argued that such videos, many of the comments to the media from WWE's corporate communications office, as well as a planned WWE fan appreciation day scheduled in Hartford for Oct. 30, the Saturday before the election, all show there is a "improper coordination" between the candidate and the company.

DiNardo also said WWE is potentially interfering with voting on election night by holding a SmackDown wrestling match in Bridgeport.

Ed Patru called the complaint "utterly baseless" (well he would, that's his job to defend Linda at all costs and by proxy her husband and his company as well) and added:  

This campaign scrupulously complies with all FEC regulations and has not and does not coordinate with WWE concerning its various corporate activities.  We look forward to the FEC promptly dismissing this specious complaint.

It sounds like Patru may have expected this development, as he was already insisting that their activities weren't coordinated before the complaint was even filed:

Earlier this week, Patru said the company initiated the Internet campaign "on its own" and how "the company did not seek the campaign's input and the campaign did not provide any input."

Meanwhile, Vince McMahon was unsurprisingly bullish:

World Wrestling Entertainment will not be bullied or intimidated by whining allegations intended to censor our freedom of speech

There's some irony about Vince complaining about bullying, whining and censorship, given how he runs his company and his recent whining about the mostly truthful "malicious" media "attacks".

According to Dave Meltzer, Blumenthal also sent a mailer using the "Stand Up For WWE" campaign to his own advantage:

--The Blumenthal campaign sent out a mailer today writing that "Linda's husband, Vince McMahon launched Stand up for WWE, an overt and brazen attempt by a corporation--controlled by the McMahon family--to buy an election."  It was in the form of looking for contributions saying WWE is directing their millions of viewers to take to Facebook, Twitter and any means possible to attack Richard Blumenthal.

Finally, below are the latest attack ads from both campaigns with the Connecticut Democrats going for a Benny Hill theme to make fun of Linda constantly ducking the press, while Linda attacks Blumenthal's links with Chris Dodd and the Countrywide Mortgage scandal.  Linda might be on to something with that line of attack, but it's probably too little too late at this point.