Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Ensign played Reid in Angle debate prep; Angle once said dictators can have “good ideas”

As the circular firing squad continues in the wake of Sharron Angle's loss to Harry Reid, the true dysfunction of what went on inside the GOP nominee's campaign continues to amaze. I have already posted elsewhere on this blog an astounding ad that some locals produced but never aired.

But there's more from an Angle insider:

----Sen. John Ensign, who Reid has not laid a glove on since June 16, 2009, helped Angle prepare for the only debate on Oct. 14. Ensign played Reid during one day of debate preparation at the Trump Tower in Las Vegas. Hmmm -- I wonder if he gave Angle the "Man, up" line. Or if Reid will man up when Ensign runs for re-election....

----Late in the campaign, during a private meet and greet, Angle was asked about Social Security privatization. She had previously used Chile's Augusto Pinochet's experiment as an example, but had not used it since her staff shut her down. But that day, with no media there, saying her staff had warned her not to use it, she raised the Chile example again and added, "Sometimes dictators have good ideas." Her staff fretted the line would get out. It did not. Until now.

----Team Angle put campaign volunteers through a three-hour indoctrination. Included was an instruction of what to do if anyone came into the office who looked like a Democrat, a Reid supporter or a member of the media -- they all look alike! -- and that order was to dial a certain extension in front of the interloper and say, "It's time to water the plants." Sounds like Don Adams might have been on the other end of the line. You can't make this stuff up, folks.

----Finally, the political pros had their own handle for the local tea partiers who sometimes had Angle's ear. They took to calling them collectively: The Island of Misfit Toys. In case, you don't know the reference, it's from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, a place where defective or unwanted toys are sent.

Yes, folks, this was the most important Senate race in the country.

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