Linda McMahon kicks off second bid for Senate in Connecticut

Linda McMahon is back.

The former CEO of WWE and the Republican Party’s 2010 U.S. Senate nominee in Connecticut will make another run for the office in 2012.

“As your senator, I will go to Washington with one objective: to get our state and country working again,” she said during a brief speech Tuesday morning on the floor of a Southington factory.

McMahon pledged to run a race that is “candid, open and fair” and said she’ll work with Republicans, Democrats and independents. “Serving our country means putting people before party,” she said.

Her supporters say she will conduct a different kind of campaign this time — driven less by consultants and focusing more on her personal appeal.

State Sen. Joe Markley attended this morning’s speech because he is a big McMahon supporter. But that wasn’t always the case. He initially viewed her with skepticism as a vanity candidate with nothing more to offer than a large bank account.

“What turned me around was getting to know her,” Markley said. He described McMahon as “sincere and engaging ... [an] intelligent woman absolutely beholden to nobody.”

McMahon would have been the state’s first female U.S. senator but some of her lowest approval numbers during the 2010 campaign came from women voters. Former state Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy predicted McMahon won’t have a problem connecting with women this time around because her emphasis on turning the economy around will resonate with them.

While McMahon’s campaign strategy may be different, her message, if this morning’s announcement is any indication, will remain largely the same. Indeed, McMahon sounded many of the themes she emphasized in the 2010 race, when she lost to Democrat Richard Blumenthal despite spending $50 million of her personal fortune.

She emphasized jobs and the economy, pledging to unveil a jobs plan in coming weeks, and spoke of the need for lower taxes and fewer regulations as a way to spark the recovery.

And as she did two years ago, McMahon highlighted her biography.

“I know what our families are trying to do to survive,” she said. “I’ve been there and you never forget.”

She spoke of coming back from the brink of bankruptcy to build a professional wrestling and entertainment conglomerate with her husband and high school sweetheart, Vince McMahon. But pointedly, she did not name the company, which became the focus of criticism during the 2010 race.

That’s not likely to change. Even before McMahon officially announced her bid, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee issued a press release denouncing her as a “greedy CEO ... who made her fortune by putting her own profits before the health and safety of her workers and marketing sex and violence to children.”

While McMahon’s strategy over the next year or so may be different, her kick-off was as highly choreographed as many of her 2010 events. She took no questions after her speech at Coil Pro, the manufacturing firm that hosted her. Instead, she held a series of one-on-one interviews with political reporters from around the state after her public announcement.

The seat is currently held by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who announced in January he is not seeking reelection. Two other Republicans, Hartford lawyer Brian K. Hill and Vernon Mayor Jason McCoy, are running; former Congressman Chris Shays is expected to enter the race next month.

Three Democrats — former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, Rep. Chris Murphy and state Rep. William Tong — are also running.