The Nevada Republican Party is holding its convention this weekend. And the event will feature two speakers tonight who have each had a rough time over the last week — Senate nominee Sharron Angle and RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
Both Steele and Angle will be speaking tonight at the party’s unity dinner, which will begin at 7 p.m. Pacific Time.
The state Republican convention will be held at the Green Valley Ranch Resort and Casino in Henderson, Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas. Tonight’s “unity dinner” is sold out — though Nevada Republicans can still buy $150 tickets for a cocktail party and photo op with Steele before the dinner begins. And tomorrow, the state GOP will vote on its platform.
But its the joint appearance of Angle and Steele — at a party unity dinner, no less — that really got our attention. Both have been having an awfully tough time over the last week.
Steele has courted controversy throughout his tenure as RNC chair — but especially since last week, when video was released of him speaking at a GOP fundraising event in Connecticut, where he seemed to oppose the Afghanistan war and contradict its history of the last nine years: “Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”
Steele quickly backed away from the comment, and has faced calls for his resignation from Bill Kristol, Erick Erickson, Liz Cheney, and Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK).
Angle meanwhile, has just committed her first unambiguous walk-back of the general election campaign. She retracted comments in which she had called the $20 billion escrow account that BP negotiated with the Obama administration a “slush fund” and also declared, “Government shouldn’t be doing that to a private company.” She has now said her original bashing of the fund “was incorrect.”
She is also involved in a sort of legal shadowboxing with Harry Reid’s campaign, after the Reid camp re-posted her pre-primary website, which her campaign has since revised with toned-down versions of her right-wing positions. Last Friday, the Angle campaign sent Team Reid a cease-and-desist letter, alleging violation of copyrights and that the site was Angle’s intellectual property. The Reid campaign then briefly took down the site — then made some slight modifications to eliminate any chance of confusion, and put it right back up. And in response, Angle is still threatening legal action.
So let’s see how Angle and Steele each perform tonight, and whether they can successfully move beyond the latest gaffes. It should be fun.
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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