GayPatriot

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On Sharon Angle & Voter Enthusiasm

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Back in 1980, folks in Jimmy Carter’s campaign were salivating at the chance to take on Ronald Reagan in the fall.  They thought that he was so far to the right that they could easily dispatch the former Governor of the (then-)Golden State.  The Gipper won in a landslide, carrying all but six states.

Similarly, outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Mt. Crumpit) is salivating at the chance to take on Sharon Angle, the Tea Party-backed candidate who yesterday won the GOP primary in Nevada.  Portrayed as eccentric by some, the Republican nominee polls worse against Reid than did her major rivals for the party’s nod.  Still, despite spending millions of dollars in a state he has represented in the Senate for 24 years, Reid garners only about 40% of the vote in most surveys, not a good sign for a man with high name recognition.

One thing we know about Angle is that she can rally her base.   That’s going to mean a lot of volunteers making phone calls and knocking on doors, generating enthusiasm for her candidacy and helping get people to the polls in November.

Reid may attack her eccentricities, but that could backfire given his unpopularity and the national mood.  And one thing we’ve learned from campaigns going as far back as the Gipper’s is that a candidate who can rally his base stands in good stead against an unpopular incumbent.

It’s not yet a done deal for Sharon Angle, but with the most dynamic grassroots movement in America today currently behind her and with Nevadans disgruntled about their senior Senator, she should be able to build up a good head of steam to defeat the out-of-touch incumbent.

Remember, folks, enthusiasm matters in politics.  Without the passion Obama generated among young people in the 2008 campaign, he wouldn’t be president today.  (And Democrats, as a result, wouldn’t be so worried about the mid-term elections.)

Comments

  2. I just finished a post on Sharon Angle. I just want to know, what is so crazy about her ideas? Giving young workers a private option in place of social security? Eliminating the wasteful and useless Department of Education? Pulling out of the wasteful, corrupt, and dangerous United Nations? What’s wrong with any of that?

  5. You do realize that this woman does not support GLBT rights in ANY way, shape or form, don’t you? She represents the extreme right wing (oh, I almost forgot, this is the extreme right wing) of your party. I’ll never understand the oxymoron of “Gay Republican”; it’s just as perplexing as “Black Republican”. Face it folks, if the Teabaggers had it their way, you’d be put you into camps ASAP! God, what a bunch of losers.

  6. #2: “I just want to know, what is so crazy about her ideas?”

    You know the answer to that, V the K. Angle’s ideas, if implemented, would necessarily involve an unprecedented reversal of the status quo allowing for the possibility of money, individual freedom, and the power to make decisions concerning right and wrong to flow back to The People. It’s a concept that liberals find utterly repugnant even in theory. How else can you explain the fact that liberals consistently refer to the Bush tax cuts as “the disastrous Bush tax cuts”? In their world, the federal government sending a rebate check for 300 bucks to an American who has previously spent decades handing over 25 to 40 percent of their annual income to the government is “disastrous.” DISASTROUS! Liberals believe that the swift and ever-widening river of money and power that has been flowing to Washington for as long as any of us have been alive is the natural order of things and the very suggestion of a tiny trickle of it flowing back the other direction is just SICK, WRONG, and DANGEROUS. These people–“progressives”–actually think that giving even 0.0000000000000001 percent of the money that the federal government has collected back to the taxpayer is a DISASTER.

    Considering that the White House and the majority of Congress is populated by people who think this way, it’s easy to see why Angle’s ideas can be so readily dismissed in the MSM as “crazy,” “radical,” and “fringe.” She may as well run on a platform of decriminalizing cannibalism and expanding opportunities for ritual baby sacrifice.

  7. Ralph, please back up your statement that the Tea Party wants to put gays or anybody else in camps! Your slur shows your bias as well as your ignorance. It’s the liberals and so-called “progressives” who are intolerant and name callers.

  8. Face it folks, if the Teabaggers had it their way, you’d be put you into camps ASAP!

    Yup, you were promising that when Bush was elected in 2000, and again in 2004 when he was re-elected, and you know what?

    IT NEVER HAPPENED!

    So stick it in your ear, Cassandra. Or actually, that’s slurring Cassandra; she was actually right every time.

  13. I’m writing from Nevada, where I live in the assembly district that Sharron Angle used to represent, and her victory in the primary has me worried that Harry Reid’s chances to win in November have just increased dramatically. I’ve written some comments about Angle in the past two days in response to some pieces about the primaries at Pajamas Media. Basically, the problem is that Angle represents the extreme conservative wing of the state Republican party, and the conservatives and the moderates in the state party don’t get along very well.

    In 2004, the Republicans couldn’t find anyone to run against Reid, and they ended up with a candidate named Ziser who was extremely conservative–including very socially conservative and homophobic, as well. Many influential Republicans in Nevada refused to endorse him, and many openly endorsed Reid, instead. Reid one that year with what I believe was his largest majority ever.

    This year, some influential Republicans are making noises about possibly not endorsing Angle. One of them is the Republican minority leader (former majority leader) of the state senate, whom Angle took on in an unsuccessful primary challenge in 2008. Many conservatives in the state regard him as too much of a big spender and as something of a RINO, but it’s not an exaggeration to describe him as possibly the most influential Republican in the state. And he’s not the only one who has expressed doubts about Angle.

    I can go on (and on), but you might begin to get the picture: the more the Democrats attack her as extreme (and that has already begun), the more likely it is that the moderates in the party will either defect to Reid or at least distance themselves from her. And don’t expect the press to help her get her message out.

    There is certainly much anger at Reid in Nevada these days, but at this moment, I’m not sure that that is enough on its own to elect Angle.

  16. This year, some influential Republicans are making noises about possibly not endorsing Angle. One of them is the Republican minority leader (former majority leader) of the state senate, whom Angle took on in an unsuccessful primary challenge in 2008.

    Good. Then tell him that he will be the one who’s responsible for putting Dingy Harry back into office.

    Folks like that need to grow balls and do so quickly. They can either get behind Angle or vote for Reid and permanently emasculate themselves. If this idiot is petty enough to keep Reid in office because of his personal grudge against Angle, he doesn’t need to be in politics, period.

  17. Well, he’s term-limited and in his last term in the state senate. But as I said, he’s not the only one. Many folks in the state (including independents and some Republicans) see Reid as useful for the money he can bring to the state. (You can observe the same dynamic in West Virginia, where Robert Byrd keeps getting re-elected over and over.) There is a certain contingent who might not like lots of things about Reid, but they think he’s useful because he has a position of influence.

  18. Another complicating factor is that Angle is from northern Nevada, not the more populous (and more liberal) south, and the north-south divide is a bigger issue in state politics than most non-Nevadans realize. Reid is from southern Nevada.

  19. I think many voters across the state are quite ready to trade eccentricities (especially new ones) for Reid’s (horse’s-) ASSentricities any ole day…

  20. These days, for a nominee like Angle to be rejected by Republican party hacks may not be a bad thing. Sue Lowden has promised to support her, FWIW.

    That said, yeah, she’s going to have a tough time of it. Sue Lowden made a historically accurate observation that in bygone eras, people paid their doctors with chickens when they had no money. The MFM twisted this into, “She wants to enact a health care system based on chicken bartering,” and a lot of dumb saps bought into it.

    Angle will have to run a pitch-perfect campaign to avoid being Randed. Also, she got no moneez.

  21. bygone eras?

    heliotrope, when I was a kid my family dentist did work for barter. One of the ponds on his farm was dug and completed in exchange for braces and orthodontal work for the worker’s son.

    Barter still happens a lot, I’m not that old. The grey hair’s from the ex-wives.

  23. Exactly, V the K, and that’s the problem that she faces. Sue Lowden had the advantages of a personal fortune, good looks, and some small measure of charisma, plus she was known in southern Nevada, and she couldn’t live down that “chicken” comment. Sharron Angle will be a new name to many who live outside northern Nevada, but when the media starts repeating the Democrat talking points the day after she secured the nomination (and, yes, the first articles echoing those talking points appeared yesterday), there might be a problem. Harry Reid wants to make Sharron Angle the issue, and with the media’s help, he might be able to do it.

  25. Peter, Kurt’s intentions in bringing this up are not malevolent or concern-trollish. I think he’s just pointing out the obvious, which is that Angle was definitely not the party leadership’s first choice and that she has some distinct hurdles to overcome.

    That being said, Nikki Haley and Scott Brown faced many of the same challenges. The Rasmussen poll is a great start; now the laser focus needs to be kept on the fact that Reid will start attacking her relentlessly, and that it needs to be hammered into peoples’ heads that Reid is an arrogant, power-hungry, irresponsible liar.

  26. Thanks for your response to Peter, NDT. That was my point, that if anyone thinks this is going to be easy for Angle, it’s not. On the same newscast where I heard about the latest Rasmussen poll showing a huge bump for Angle since the primary, I also heard that the Republican mayor of Reno–the city where Angle lives–has just refused to endorse her and has endorsed Reid instead. Mayor Cashell was a Democrat until the Reagan years when he became a Republican, so it would be fair to call him an opportunist where party affiliation is concerned. Unfortunately, I don’t expect he will be the only well-known Nevada Republican to pull that stunt this year. As I said in comment #23, Reid’s strategy will be to make Angle the issue.

  27. When are these candidates going to learn to keep their big traps shut. Angles is now featured on Harry Reid’s advertisments stating that she wants to get rid of Social Security. How stupid can you be? The same goes for Rand Paul sticking his foot in his mouth.

  28. I love how there are gay Democrats that crash this website and fling insults at the Republicans. I also love how they claim to be soooo open-minded, but refuse to accept that gay Republicans exist. WAY to go Ralph. Oh, and by the way, your “camps” comment is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. You’ve obviously been listening to CNN.
    On Sharron, I agree with a lot of her views, and LOVE her views on education. I couldn’t agree more. However, I’m having trouble finding enough info on her views on gay rights. I know the term “anti-gay” is thrown around quite a bit these days, but most of the time I don’t think it’s justified. I need to find more information about her.