I GUESS SHE’S NOT A RAIDERS FAN…. It’s easy to forget, but before Sharron Angle (R) said a lot of crazy things as a U.S. Senate candidate, she said a lot of crazy things at a local level. In 1992, for example, Angle ran for a county school board.
One of her big issues at the time? Angle opposed a local high school using black athletic jerseys, which she considered un-Christian and wicked. She won, and the jerseys changed to a different color. Asked about this the other day, Angle didn’t quite deny it, but said it wasn’t relevant to the Senate race.
Jon Chait’s reaction was very much in line with my own.
One of the reasons I’ve been fascinated with Sharron Angle’s Senate campaign is that she is not merely a candidate with extremely radical views, like Rand Paul, she inhabits an ideological grey area where radicalism starts to become indistinguishable with actual mental illness. […]
I can see why conservatives would want to look the other way from Angle’s looniness. Knocking off Harry Reid is a delicious opportunity for the GOP, and Angle would be a reliable party vote against President Obama’s agenda. But isn’t there some risk in identifying your party with such an obviously crazy person?
That need not be a rhetorical question. Republican hatred for Harry Reid is practically limitless, but exactly how many GOP leaders look at Sharron Angle and conclude that the nation will be well served by her service in the United States Senate? For that matter, how many of them believe Republicans’ reputation will be improved by supporting someone who, by all appearances, is stark raving mad?
Ideally, one imagines responsible Republicans coming forward to announce their opposition to such extremism, much the same way then-Sen. John Warner (R) of Virginia said in 1994 that he didn’t want to see Oliver North join the Senate.
Any chance we’ll see anything similar this year? (Don’t worry, that is a rhetorical question.)
