Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

SUN EDITORIAL:

A disingenuous candidate

The real Sharron Angle emerges despite attempts to whitewash views

As she sought the Republican U.S. Senate nomination to take on Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sharron Angle positioned herself as the outsider, willing to take on the establishment. She even went so far as to say, “I am the Tea Party.” About two weeks ago, when Angle won the GOP nomination, she indicated that her views wouldn’t be tempered for the general election, when she will need the votes of moderates to beat Reid. “Remember, they said that Reagan was too conservative to win,” she said. “There’s no such thing.”

Well, that was then, and this is now. Her campaign is hurriedly trying to create a new Angle, a candidate who won’t alienate and frighten Nevadans. The reason is simple: Angle’s views are so extreme that her campaign doesn’t want moderate Republicans and independents — voters who could decide this election — to know where she really stands on the issues.

So, from a purely tactical perspective, it’s not surprising that her campaign would want to hide the real Angle. A story in The Wall Street Journal last week noted how some of the underdog candidacies that ran on the anti-establishment message, including Angle’s, are now courting the establishment after their primary victories. In Angle’s case, the story mentioned she was using more careful language. Bill Manders, a conservative radio talk show host in Reno, said Angle “has to move a little bit toward the center ... as to not appear to be so radical.” But no political makeover can hide Angle’s radical views.

Take, for instance, her position on Social Security. During the primary contest, she made it clear she wants to privatize Social Security. During a Republican debate on “Face to Face With Jon Ralston,” she said: “We need to phase Social Security and Medicare out in favor of something privatized ... Don’t fix it ... It can’t be fixed. It’s broken.” Her position couldn’t be clearer.

But now Angle is acting as if her belief that Social Security should be dismantled — something that was well documented during the primary campaign — never happened. When Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked her after the primary if she wanted to phase out Social Security, Angle’s incredible reply was: “It’s nonsense.” According to a transcript of the program, she also said: “I want to save Medicare and Social Security ... 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.”

We’re certainly not going to get straight talk from Sharron Angle, who is trying to substitute the word “personalize” for “privatize” when it comes to Social Security. She’s trying to use a euphemism to paper over her past statements. Nevadans should remember what a fellow Republican had to say about Angle’s plan. Robert Uithoven, campaign manager for Sue Lowden’s unsuccessful bid to get the Republican Senate nomination, told the Associated Press during the campaign that Angle’s proposal “is completely out of step ... In a state that has a huge number of retirees, it’s not a proposal Nevadans ... would back.”

Some other important points to consider: Although Angle has said that current Social Security recipients should still receive their benefits, she hasn’t explained exactly how those people would receive the same level of benefits if everybody younger than them is kicked out of the system. In other words, who would be paying into the trust fund so that retirees would get their monthly checks? And with respect to Medicare, how exactly would millions of seniors just barely getting by now somehow afford medical care if this government program didn’t exist?

Nevadans are seeing a candidate trying to weasel her way out of an unpopular position. Angle is doing the very thing that she and Tea Party followers claim to abhor: She is a ruthless, win-at-all-cost politician who cares only about acquiring power, even if it means being dishonest with voters about her actual views on the issues.

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