02 July 2010

Could Sharron Angle actually win?

I live in Pennsylvania, but the Senate race in Nevada this year is proving to be even more colorful and interesting than our own. Challenging incumbent Harry Reid, who happens to be the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, is Sharron Angle, a tea party Republican. That means she is a bit extreme.

For example, she keeps floating the idea of a "Second Amendment remedy" to deal with a government that might prove disappointing. Considering that the Second Amendment has to do with the right to keep and bear arms, it's hard to stretch Angle's comments into a peaceful context.

On more practical issues, her positions are just as extreme.

According to the New York Times, "she favors the privatization of Medicare and Social Security, supported a program based on Scientology that would have offered massages to some prison inmates, and did not support unemployment insurance in a state with among the highest jobless rates in the nation."

She does not believe that humans contribute to global warming, and she wants to disband the Department of Energy.

Her response to the BP oil spill was a call to deregulate the oil industry.

And she is against abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, because she doesn't want to interfere with "God's plan".

Perhaps most interesting from a Nevada political standpoint is that she suggested that alcohol should not be legal. Now think about this: She's running in Nevada -- the home of Las Vegas and Reno. Alcohol is a big part of their casino revenues.

So does she stand a chance of winning?

I hope not. But, at the same time, I suppose that stranger things have happened. And many Republicans and Independents -- radicalized by Glenn Beck and the tea party movement -- have fallen into a pattern of voting against their own best interests.

So we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, I'll make the popcorn.

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