Harry Reid should thank Nevada Republicans if voters send him back to Washington. The Senate Majority Leader would’ve likely been defeated had the GOP nominated a rational candidate. Instead, they selected Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, who’s quickly established herself as a far-right lunatic.
- Angle’s website credited her with a successful bill against psychotropic drugs in schools, a position also supported by Scientologists, and that Angle had accompanied celebrity Scientologists Jenna Elfman and Kelly Preston to promote the bill in the U.S. Senate.
- Angle is pro-life and opposes abortion, including in cases of rape or incest. In a June 2010 radio interview, broadcast statewide in Nevada, Angle stated that she had counseled young girls in “very at risk, difficult pregnancies” to consider other alternatives, by which they had been able to make “a lemon situation into lemonade.”
- She has voted against fluoridation of drinking water (see clip below).
- Regarding the Gulf oil spill, Angle said, “Everyone in the petroleum industry shouldn’t be penalized for one bad person’s actions. It would be like throwing us all in prison because one person committed murder. And that’s exactly what’s going on here.” Actually, BP is the only company penalized, and they agreed to the $20 billion compensation plan, which Angle called a “slush fund.”
Nevada Republicans are already having second thoughts.
After first withholding her support, former Nevada Congresswoman Barbara Vucanovich, a well-respected figure in the party, announced this week that she would back Angle. But Vucanovich’s endorsement ended up sounding more like a scolding.
“I said, ‘Sharron, you’re scaring the bejesus out of everybody,’” Vucanovich told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, describing “a long, candid conversation conversation” with Angle. “I told her you better make damn sure people really understand what you’re trying to do.”
Real Clear Politics calls the race a toss-up, but it shouldn’t have been that close. That’s what happens when you embrace the fringe.
