Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Sharron Angle tries to bury campaign questions that dogged her

Sharron Angle

CATHLEEN ALLISON / SPECIAL TO THE SUN

Nevada congressional candidate Sharron Angle answers questions from the media in Reno on Monday, March 22, 2011.

Republican Sharron Angle tried to hit the reset button on her strained relationship with the media Monday.

She spent 2010 running from reporters — through parking lots and airports, and out the backdoor of campaign venues — ignoring or declining interview requests and calling the media names.

Her objective Monday: to begin her next campaign for the 2nd Congressional District seat on new footing.

For an hour, she veritably prostrated herself before the media in a Reno hotel, fielding a barrage of questions from nine reporters before taking time for one-on-one interviews. The overture was intended to calm the waters with a Nevada press corps still surly about being shunned last year during her unsuccessful bid to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. (In one heated exchange, a reporter demanded to know why she referred to the press as the “lamestream media” last year.)

But it was also an attempt to accomplish a more important task tied to her campaign: Quash lingering questions from 2010 so they don’t chase her through another election cycle.

“That’s exactly what she needed to do,” one Republican consultant said of the lengthy news conference days after Angle announced her run for Congress.

Although making herself available to answer questions, she wasn’t always forthcoming — sometimes repeating campaign lines from last year or avoiding direct answers. Take this exchange:

Reporter: What is your position on Yucca Mountain in the wake of Japan?

Angle: “When we have 20 percent of our energy coming from nuclear sources, when we have a military committed to nuclear reactors … we need to be looking at the role we play as a state in what goes on with the nuclear energy industry and those spent fuel rods.”

Reporter: So you still support accepting the waste?

Angle: “What we need to do is we need to find a safe place to put that, and obviously in the wake of Japan, it’s not on our seacoasts.”

Reporter: Is that safe place Yucca Mountain?

Angle: “That’s what our Congress voted. That’s what they said and if we are going to change that we need to revisit that.”

Reporter: But you still support accepting the waste at Yucca Mountain, that’s the right thing to do?

Angle: “The right thing to do is to make sure we have the safety of our citizens in mind, and we don’t leave waste in places that can be dangerous to us.”

Reporter: So Yucca Mountain would be the place to store it?

Angle: “It’s not susceptible to a tsunami, that’s true.”

At that point reporters gave up on getting an answer and moved on.

On other topics she answered forthrightly.

Should Obama have initiated military action in Libya without the approval of Congress?

“No.”

What was the biggest lesson you learned last year?

“Have a campaign commercial up a day after winning the primary.”

On other questions she fell back on answers from the 2010 campaign.

Do you oppose abortions in the case of rape or incest?

“I will always err on the side of life.”

What would you do with the Education Department?

“The Department of Education is not within our Constitution.”

Even as Angle calmly addressed most questions in an effort to mend fences, she didn’t take all of the blame for her strained relationship with the media. The press, after all, had manufactured an image of her as constantly on the run from questions, she said.

This time around, she said, I’ll answer your questions, if you don’t chase me.

“Let’s have mutual respect for one another,” she said. “I am here respecting you, and I want you to offer me that same respect. Thank you.”

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