Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

republican national Convention:

My bathroom conversation with Sharron Angle

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

TAMPA, Fla. — Running around after these Republican National Convention delegates can get to be so time-consuming that you can barely find a second to visit the little girls’ room.

And sometimes when you get there, the politicians follow you in.

Well, actually, I think Sharron Angle probably got to the ladies’ room near Press Section 126 of the Tampa Bay Times Forum before I did. But after she helpfully pointed out the only working soap dispenser, we got to talking about all things Nevada GOP, including Tuesday’s Ron Paul demonstration, the Tea Party, and of course, her legacy.

Angle “absolutely” sees the Ron Paul movement and the Tea Party movement that buoyed her 2010 Senate candidacy against Sen. Harry Reid as a natural political marriage — such a good match, in fact, that she thinks the Ron Paul movement’s recent successes validate her political legacy.

“In 2010, when I was running, everybody said ‘No, you’re too extreme,’” Angle said. “But now look, it’s where everybody is going.”

She mentioned specifically the push to audit the Fed, a rallying cry for the pro-Paul camp that they managed to get on the Republican platform last week. Angle had called for it in her 2010 campaign.

“She was ahead of her time,” Jeri Taylor-Swade said emphatically.

Oh yes — Taylor-Swade and Laurel Fee, publishers of Tea Party and Republicans Uniting Nevada Conservatives, or TRUNC, who double as Angle’s jubilant musketeers, were also present at this ladies’ room meeting. (I’m supposed to be catching up with them later so they can give me a copy of their latest issue of TRUNC.)

Angle, who backed Rick Santorum in the primary, is now supporting Mitt Romney’s candidacy. (She gave me a pithy and impassioned explanation as to why, which I wish I could relate here, but Fee teasingly would not lend me a pencil, and a girl can only remember so much.)

But unlike other Nevada Romney supporters, Angle also sticks up for the Nevada delegation’s pro-Paul demonstration during Tuesday’s roll call vote on the House floor.

“That’s what happens when you start going around the rules,” she said matter-of-factly.

As the conversation transpired, I found myself kind of wishing — and then kind of horrified at myself for wishing — that I had a camera with me to document this bathroom encounter. I know, it’s weird. But at the very least, from now on, I will not be taking any more convention bathroom breaks without a tape recorder in tow.

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