Two candidates in one

Monday, July 12, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

During the Republican primary, Senate candidate Sharron Angle had a website that clearly outlined her strong views, but once she won the nomination, most of the information was removed. It was later replaced with a highly edited version of her stance on the issues.

The revised website was an attempt by her new handlers in Washington to hide her radical views from the voters. In response, Democrats put up her original site at therealsharronangle.com, which angered Angle. She and her campaign complained that it was a “dirty trick.”

A dirty trick? How is putting Angle’s words online — unvarnished as they were in the primary — dirty? Angle hasn’t explained that. She told the interviewer that she didn’t know why the Democrats posted her old website in the first place. “There’s nothing there that everybody doesn’t know,” she said. “It was up the whole primary.”

So why doesn’t she want her old site on the Internet? If she believes in what she says, Angle should be pleased that the Democrats republished her site, shouldn’t she?

But Republicans don’t want voters to see the site because it exposes Angle’s extreme views that don’t match Nevadans’ beliefs. Angle’s handlers have been trying to hide the truth about her. They have limited media access to her and instead focused on a few talking points. At every turn, she attacks her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

That is a formula that other candidates have tried before. Four years ago, that’s what Jim Gibbons did in his successful run for governor. He hid behind a few empty campaign slogans and bashed his Democratic opponent. As Nevadans have since learned, Gibbons wasn’t fit for the job. Angle’s handlers know they have the same problem, given that she makes Gibbons’ far-right views look tame.

It is important that voters understand who Angle is and what she believes. The contrast in her campaign websites explains it well. For example:

• The old site says that Angle “believes that the Federal Department of Education should be eliminated. The Department of Education is unconstitutional and should not be involved in education, at any level.” The new site never calls the department unconstitutional nor says anything about abolishing it.

• Angle brags on the old site about an endorsement from Citizens United, the group that won a Supreme Court case overturning a crucial part of the federal campaign finance law. Instead of laws, Angle “believes that campaign finance limitations must come from the candidates themselves.” Angle doesn’t mention any of that on her new website.

• Angle’s original site says she would have supported the three proposed coal-fired power plants in Ely that Reid opposed. And it expresses her support to bring 77,000 tons of deadly radioactive waste to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The new site doesn’t mention any of that.

• On the old site, Angle calls Social Security and Medicare “entitlement programs,” and she calls for “free-market alternatives” to be developed “as the Social Security system is transitioned out.” The new site doesn’t say anything about “transitioning out” Social Security.

A talk radio show host suggested that Angle had “softened” after the primary, to which Angle replied, “I actually softened because I’m being held accountable for every idle word, as you know.”

But Angle hasn’t really softened; she is cynically trying to disguise her real beliefs. She can use any words she likes, but she still wants to cut Social Security and the Education Department and bring thousands of tons of radioactive waste to Nevada.

She should realize that it’s not the idle words she’s being held accountable for, it’s her dangerous and radical ideas.