John Fartlington Snodnagel
2010-06-17 11:21:34 UTC
Maybe she needs a lobotomy ...
======
"Nevada candidate Angle left GOP in Reagan years"
By KEVIN FREKING and MICHAEL R. BLOOD (AP)
June 16, 2010
WASHINGTON — Nevada Senate nominee Sharron Angle, a tea party favorite
who describes herself as a conservative's conservative, left the
Republican Party at the height of the Reagan revolution and became a
Democrat for at least several years, government records show.
Documents on file with the Humboldt County, Nev., clerk's office show
Angle was a registered Republican until June 1984, when she changed
her party registration. According to the records, she remained a
Democrat at least until March 1988, when she moved from Winnemucca to
Tonopah, another rural community in Nye County.
Angle has given no hint of her Democratic past on the campaign trail.
She invoked President Ronald Reagan's name on the night she captured
the GOP nomination to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and
been a relentless critic of the Obama administration.
Campaign spokesman Jerry Stacy said Angle switched parties to work for
a conservative Democrat who was running for state Senate. He said
Angle voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984.
"She's always been conservative," Stacy said. "She switched parties to
help run the (Democrat's) campaign."
Angle has vaulted to prominence on an agenda that calls for lower
taxes and smaller government. She has called for phasing out Social
Security, eliminating the Education Department and repealing the 16th
Amendment that established the federal income tax.
"While Harry Reid is busy tearing down Sharron Angle, the Republican
Party is proud to have her as our nominee," Republican National
Committee spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement.
Nevada registration records show that Angle was a member of three, and
possibly four, political parties since the 1970s and she might have
left the GOP for more than a decade.
In Angle's home county of Washoe, registrar Daniel Burk said she
registered in February 1996 as a member of the conservative
Independent American Party. About a year later, in March 1997, she
changed her party affiliation to Republican.
According to its website, the Independent American Party was founded
in 1967 by former Republican activist Daniel M. Hansen, who believed
the GOP was growing "too corrupt and socialistic."
The party supports limited government and traditional values, and its
platform calls for ending the Internal Revenue Service, cutting taxes
and regulation and renegotiating the North American Free Trade
Agreement.
Janine Hansen, a sister of the founder who sits on the party's
national committee, said Angle was a member in the 1990s. Later, when
Angle was a legislator, Hansen said she worked with her on education
and tax issues.
"We believe in limited constitutional government, just like she does,"
Hansen said.
In 1994, when Angle was living in Tonopah in Nye County, she was
registered as a member of the Independent Party, the clerk's office
said. But officials there cautioned that the records might be
incomplete.
Angle was in Washington on Tuesday, where she courted Republican
lawmakers and left it to them to answer for her.
Angle, who shocked the Republican establishment in a come-from-behind
primary victory last week, joined GOP senators at their weekly
luncheon, part of a Washington trip that included sessions with
leading conservatives. She rushed out without answering questions from
some two dozen reporters who followed her as she exited the Capitol to
a waiting car.
"She just said she was going to work hard and was looking forward to
the opportunity," said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who described her
as articulate during a brief exchange at the closed-door luncheon.
Since she captured the Senate nomination, Democrats have worked
overtime to portray Angle as too far out of the mainstream to defeat
the four-term Reid.
Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, said Democrats are trying to create doubts about Angle and
shift the attention from Reid.
"If you've got an approval rating like Harry Reid, of course you're
going to try and change the focus, but this is really a referendum on
Senator Reid," Cornyn said.
National Republicans are promising to help bankroll her campaign. Reid
is on track to raise $25 million to defend his seat, and Angle's
campaign banked $1.2 million through mid-May, the most recent figures
available.
Her campaign said she has raised more than $700,000 in online
donations alone since the primary. She hired Indiana-based Prosper
Group Corp., the online fundraisers who helped Massachusetts Sen.
Scott Brown raise $12 million over the Internet.
In a boost for Angle, a political committee advised by President
George W. Bush's former political adviser, Karl Rove, is running an ad
statewide that blames Reid for backing the costly stimulus plan while
180,000 Nevadans remain jobless.
Angle has said repeatedly she supports phasing out Social Security
over time, calling it "a broken system without much to recommend it."
She has not offered a detailed plan but said seniors now collecting
benefits would not be cut off. Younger workers would be shifted to
private retirement accounts, an idea similar to what former President
George W. Bush proposed six years ago, only to see it flop.
On Monday, Angle appeared to backpedal. Asked by Fox News Channel's
Sean Hannity about criticism that she wanted to phase out Social
Security, Angle said, "It's nonsense."
"I want to save Medicare and Social Security," Angle said, according
to a transcript of the program. "What we need is to make our senior
citizens feel secure once more with their own Social Security and
Medicare. But going forward, we need to personalize that program in a
way that the government can't go in and raid it anymore."
[Blood reported from Los Angeles.]
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j6_0QfDSgLf8ETpwwvwpwxpziA7wD9GC36380
======
"Nevada candidate Angle left GOP in Reagan years"
By KEVIN FREKING and MICHAEL R. BLOOD (AP)
June 16, 2010
WASHINGTON — Nevada Senate nominee Sharron Angle, a tea party favorite
who describes herself as a conservative's conservative, left the
Republican Party at the height of the Reagan revolution and became a
Democrat for at least several years, government records show.
Documents on file with the Humboldt County, Nev., clerk's office show
Angle was a registered Republican until June 1984, when she changed
her party registration. According to the records, she remained a
Democrat at least until March 1988, when she moved from Winnemucca to
Tonopah, another rural community in Nye County.
Angle has given no hint of her Democratic past on the campaign trail.
She invoked President Ronald Reagan's name on the night she captured
the GOP nomination to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and
been a relentless critic of the Obama administration.
Campaign spokesman Jerry Stacy said Angle switched parties to work for
a conservative Democrat who was running for state Senate. He said
Angle voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984.
"She's always been conservative," Stacy said. "She switched parties to
help run the (Democrat's) campaign."
Angle has vaulted to prominence on an agenda that calls for lower
taxes and smaller government. She has called for phasing out Social
Security, eliminating the Education Department and repealing the 16th
Amendment that established the federal income tax.
"While Harry Reid is busy tearing down Sharron Angle, the Republican
Party is proud to have her as our nominee," Republican National
Committee spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement.
Nevada registration records show that Angle was a member of three, and
possibly four, political parties since the 1970s and she might have
left the GOP for more than a decade.
In Angle's home county of Washoe, registrar Daniel Burk said she
registered in February 1996 as a member of the conservative
Independent American Party. About a year later, in March 1997, she
changed her party affiliation to Republican.
According to its website, the Independent American Party was founded
in 1967 by former Republican activist Daniel M. Hansen, who believed
the GOP was growing "too corrupt and socialistic."
The party supports limited government and traditional values, and its
platform calls for ending the Internal Revenue Service, cutting taxes
and regulation and renegotiating the North American Free Trade
Agreement.
Janine Hansen, a sister of the founder who sits on the party's
national committee, said Angle was a member in the 1990s. Later, when
Angle was a legislator, Hansen said she worked with her on education
and tax issues.
"We believe in limited constitutional government, just like she does,"
Hansen said.
In 1994, when Angle was living in Tonopah in Nye County, she was
registered as a member of the Independent Party, the clerk's office
said. But officials there cautioned that the records might be
incomplete.
Angle was in Washington on Tuesday, where she courted Republican
lawmakers and left it to them to answer for her.
Angle, who shocked the Republican establishment in a come-from-behind
primary victory last week, joined GOP senators at their weekly
luncheon, part of a Washington trip that included sessions with
leading conservatives. She rushed out without answering questions from
some two dozen reporters who followed her as she exited the Capitol to
a waiting car.
"She just said she was going to work hard and was looking forward to
the opportunity," said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who described her
as articulate during a brief exchange at the closed-door luncheon.
Since she captured the Senate nomination, Democrats have worked
overtime to portray Angle as too far out of the mainstream to defeat
the four-term Reid.
Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, said Democrats are trying to create doubts about Angle and
shift the attention from Reid.
"If you've got an approval rating like Harry Reid, of course you're
going to try and change the focus, but this is really a referendum on
Senator Reid," Cornyn said.
National Republicans are promising to help bankroll her campaign. Reid
is on track to raise $25 million to defend his seat, and Angle's
campaign banked $1.2 million through mid-May, the most recent figures
available.
Her campaign said she has raised more than $700,000 in online
donations alone since the primary. She hired Indiana-based Prosper
Group Corp., the online fundraisers who helped Massachusetts Sen.
Scott Brown raise $12 million over the Internet.
In a boost for Angle, a political committee advised by President
George W. Bush's former political adviser, Karl Rove, is running an ad
statewide that blames Reid for backing the costly stimulus plan while
180,000 Nevadans remain jobless.
Angle has said repeatedly she supports phasing out Social Security
over time, calling it "a broken system without much to recommend it."
She has not offered a detailed plan but said seniors now collecting
benefits would not be cut off. Younger workers would be shifted to
private retirement accounts, an idea similar to what former President
George W. Bush proposed six years ago, only to see it flop.
On Monday, Angle appeared to backpedal. Asked by Fox News Channel's
Sean Hannity about criticism that she wanted to phase out Social
Security, Angle said, "It's nonsense."
"I want to save Medicare and Social Security," Angle said, according
to a transcript of the program. "What we need is to make our senior
citizens feel secure once more with their own Social Security and
Medicare. But going forward, we need to personalize that program in a
way that the government can't go in and raid it anymore."
[Blood reported from Los Angeles.]
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j6_0QfDSgLf8ETpwwvwpwxpziA7wD9GC36380