THE ANGLE TO THE RIGHT OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY…. Just how far from the American mainstream is Sharron Angle, the Republican nominee in Nevada to the U.S. Senate? For a while, she was a member of a right-wing political party that was more extreme than the Republican Party.
As it happens, one party on the ballot — the Independent American Party of Nevada — is a party that Angle herself once belonged to.
The Independent American Party of Nevada was resurrected as a state-recognized party in 1992 by Angle and others. It favors low taxes and opposes gun control, illegal immigration, abortion, gay rights and “global government.” […]
The Reno Gazette-Journal reported in 2002 that Angle had been one of the Nevada voters to sign papers to revive the party in a drive organized by its late founder, Daniel Hansen, and that she’d remained a member until 1997.
Apparently, Angle was a Republican, then left the GOP to get involved with the IAPN, and then re-registered as a Republican in March 1997. During her tenure with the party, the IAPN launched an effort to get a ballot measure what would give Nevadans “the constitutional right to discriminate against homosexuals.”
Barbara Morrill also did some cursory research, and found a report noting that IAPN paid for a newspaper insert ad that described homosexuality “as a ‘putrid indulgence,’ and depicts gay sex in graphically excremental terms and in language that occasionally verges on soft-core porn.”
Oh my.
In related news, the Republican mayor of Reno, who had supported Sue Lowden’s Senate campaign, announced yesterday that he’ll support Harry Reid (D) over Angle. “She’s an ultra-right winger,” Reno Mayor Bob Cashell (R) said. “I can’t support her. I don’t support her.”
Dawn Gibbons, Nevada’s First Lady and a former Republican state assembly member who served with Angle, also threw her support to Harry Reid.
