Sharron Angle doesn’t see what the big deal is with her past statements and long-held ultra-conservative views. In a new interview with CNN — which the network rightfully touts as “rare” — Angle suggests that observers of the Senate race in Nevada who want to paint her as “extreme” are ignoring the truth about her.
“I’ll be a mainstream Senator,” she told CNN. Angle, the Republican nominee, says that the all-but-universally-accepted notion that she’s pushing the envelope when it comes to conservative politics in mainstream races this year is nothing but spin.
“As you speak, as we’re conversationally speaking, sometimes when you pick out words, they’re not the best words you could have used,” Angle says in the interview. “When taken out of context, you can make anybody look like they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Harry Reid, the Democratic nominee in the race, was blunt in his response to that comment. “It’s a little hard to take out of context when they say they want to phase out Social Security,” Reid told CNN.
Reid and the Democrats have been smacking Angle over her view that Social Security should be eliminated as well as her other fiscal views concerning the dangers of providing unemployment insurance to people who lose their jobs and the mistake that was sending government aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Then, of course, there’s Angle’s other objectively outside-the-mainstream views involving the potential for “Second Amendment remedies” if Reid wins reelection and her fear that “domestic enemies” may already be serving in Congress.
On that last point, Angle told CNN that openly suspecting that dangerous enemies of America have made their way into Congress by means of democratic elections isn’t as extreme as it sounds:
“The larger focus of that conversation is what has happened domestically here and our country for the last 18 months,” Angle said, pointing out that no names were mentioned during the conversation, and again avoiding the intent of her statement.
Watch the interview:
The TPM Poll Average shows Reid leading Angle 47.6-44.3.
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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