Saturday, June 19, 2010

WHY THERE'LL BE MORE SHARRON ANGLE MOMENTS LIKE THIS

Sharron Angle just did (surprise!) another interview with the right-wing press -- this time with Human Events. The title of the piece is "Sharron Angle Goes On the Attack," but, as you may know, in firing back at her critics she seems to have shot herself in the foot again. Asked about the Scientology-linked prison rehabilitation program she supported a few years back, she said:

"...Those two protocols were developed by [the late Church of Scientology founder] L. Ron Hubbard, and they had to give him credit. But it is not Scientology, but rather natural homeopathic medicine."

Oh. So, it's, um, not linked to Scientology, but it was devised by the guy who founded Scientology. And it's homeopathic! That's good, right? The Framers were homeopathic, weren't they?

Rand Paul, the other GOP Senate candidate with a foot-in-mouth problem, has mostly been sticking to a Rose Garden strategy (he did emerge just now to express sympathy for Joe Barton -- although, given the near-universal sympathy for BP at this moment among right-wing talkers and pundits, I think the pro-BP stance is going to become increasingly popular on the right, so maybe this won't hurt Paul).

Angle, however, probably can't stay out of the national press -- and I say this based on a Hotline story from a couple of days ago:

Ex-NV Assemb. Sharron Angle (R) is raising more than $100K a day online since winning the right to face Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid, according to data kept on her website.

... That pace has helped her bring in new staff and begin to build the foundations of a statewide organization, something she lacked in the primary.

The cash is crucial to Angle's success. She had just $138K in the bank and a $170K debt as of her pre-primary report through May 19....

Still, her money picture stands in stark contrast to Reid's campaign; the top Senate Dem had $9.1M in the bank through the same date....


Her strategy, clearly, is to keep talking, if only to the right-wing media. She clearly thinks she needs to become a nationwide right-wing heroine so she can raise enough cash from out-of-state wingnut donors to make this a race.

So I think she's going to do a lot of interviews with right-wing journalists and right-wing talkers.

If many of these interviews are live, or if they're on tape, like this Human Events interview, and they're not edited in a way that makes her look good, she's going to put a permanent shoe print on her tongue.

On the other hand, I'm not sure she can possibly make this prison program look worse than it assuredly does to Nevada voters already. So maybe, as self-inflicted wounds go, this one was only a graze.

No comments: