…unless you’re attending a WWE show. On Friday, the Hartford Courant’s Daniela Altimari reported that Connecticut polling places might turn away voters donning WWE merchandise on Tuesday, November 2, given the wrestling promotion’s association with Republican candidate Linda McMahon.
“Even though it doesn’t say her name directly … the brand is so ubiquitously associated with the McMahons,” said Av Harris, a spokesman for Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz.
Harris acknowledged that any discussion about voters’ apparel is a “very, very delicate issue.”
“We have a candidate who is very very well-known, who is a celebrity to millions of fans throughout the country,” he said. “This has been a very contentious, hard-fought campaign, but the sanctity of the polling place is sacrosanct.”
“There is absolutely nothing in the statute that prohibits someone from wearing an apolitical, nonpartisan piece of clothing to the polls,” McMahon spokesman Ed Patru said. “This opinion seems overtly partisan, and anytime the state starts arbitrarily denying citizens the right to vote, democracy itself is under attack. It’s very, very troubling.”
Republican Chairman Chris Healy called it a “ridiculous act of voter intimidation.”
Responds Figure4Online’s Bryan Alvarez, a writer who has more than a passing familiarity with the McMahon family’s business practices, “this is laughable for a company that confiscates signs at its arenas and would has a policy of not allowing fans visible on camera to wear T-shirts from other promotion.”
I’m no McMahon fan, but I can’t conceive of a healthy democracy where one’s t-shirt keeps one out of a voting booth. The simple question of who would determine which shirts are acceptable (shy of actual campaign apparel) boggles the mind. I share your revulsion towards this sort of censorship at WWE events, but that’s an issue for building owners and security (who should tell WWE that paying customers have the right to wear what they want). Extending the analogy to voting booths is positively harmful to the exercise of democracy (in a way that prohibiting the wearing of a TNA shirt to Monday Night Raw simply isn’t).
This blog is a godsend to those looking for quasi-rational responses to the idiocy of the (sporting and non-sporting) world, but I think this comes across as simply spiteful toward an unappealing candidate and loses a bit of perspective. You and your co-authors share a gift for cutting through all kinds of bullshit. The WWE’s stance on acceptable garb at a wrestling show is certainly bullshit of the highest order, but that shouldn’t (even jokingly) be applied to the clothing options of Connecticut voters.
I’m sure I’ll elicit some Heath Ledger as the Joker reaction (why so serious?!?), but censoring fans is not a crime of the same order as preventing voters from voting. Especially since the average CT wrestling fan is likely to be less…bourgeois than the average CT voter, this would penalize those most likely to A) harmlessly wear a shirt to the booth and B) have no clue that there are restrictions on voting apparel.
I personally have no taste for wrestling or politics, but I do believe a person’s tastes should not prevent them from voting. I truly don’t get wrestling but do have an “Angle Slam or Tap Out” t-shirt given to me by a friend. If I happened to wear that shirt on the way to vote for either candidate, should I be turned away? There is enough hypocrisy in McMahon’s stance to warrant mention, but not enough to suggest that apparel is grounds for disenfranchisement.
In no way do I endorse Connecticut’s stance on this issue — I’m not aware of the WWE having manufactured any Linda McMahon tees and it seems like a huge stretch to presume donning a shirt portraying a WWE wrestler (say, one of those that died on Linda’s watch or shortly afterwards) connotes endorsement of her candidacy.
I would also agree it’s a bit of a stretch to claim dictating what WWE ticketholders can or cannot wear is the same thing as repressing voter rights, however, I do think it was worth noting the McMahon’s hypocrisy. Signs/shirts in the front row of a RAW taping might not be considered political protest, but that’s genuine free expression and social dissent on some level.