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May 25, 2012

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Angle: If I win, I will get any constituent who wants a meeting in to see powerful GOP senators

Published Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010 | 3:06 p.m.

Updated Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010 | 3:51 p.m.

Could be some long lines outside the offices of Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint and Mitch McConnell, the senators Sharron Angle promised she would have the "juice" to get him into see if Scott Ashjian endorsed her. But that was no quid pro quo, no Reidesque promise of access she was making during that taped meeting with Ashjian, Angle told conservative gabber and Angle campaign booster Heidi Harris, who is emceeing an event for her.

But that's just more revisionist history -- and, again, there's a tape of the meeting to reference, Ms. Angle! -- because she clearly was promising Ashjian a quid pro quo -- help me and I'll help you.

Here's what she said today to Harris:

"Well, of course, I offered him meetings with people that are friends of mine. Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn are friends of mine, and I would offer that to any constituent in Nevada. You know, that’s the whole point of being your Senator is to have availability and accessibility to Washington, D.C. and the laws that are being made that directly affect us. This was nothing more than a political stunt by him to expose whatever he thought he was exposing, but, of course you have that same access through your Senator, Heidi. If you want to come to Washington, D.C. and go and visit with any of these Senators, the only ones that I can offer up to you are the ones that I have good relationships with, and that’s what I offered to him too, is that I would go with him to these folks and you could talk about those things that are concerning you about the legislation that’s come out of Washington, D.C. like Obamacare, and certainly, Harry Reid has not been talking to any of us about that. He’s not been available to us and he’s not been talking about how this is affecting us right now in our lives in Nevada."

Actually, Angle said to Ashjian that she will provide access to "those who helped me." Here's exactly what she said on the tape:

"We’ve got the power of a political machinery that we’ve never seen the likes of. That really gives me some juice. And that gives me juice to help those who help me. And that’s really all I can offer to you, is whatever juice I have, you have as well. You want to see DeMint? I have juice with him now. I go to Washington DC now and I say “I want to see Jim DeMint” he’s right there for me. I say “I want to see Tom Coburn” he’s right there for me. I want to see Mitch McConnell, he’s there."

I also find it humorous, while Harry Reid is not exactly Mr. Accessible, that Sharron Angle, of all people, would be criticizing Reid for not doing town halls. When was her last one -- one where she took questions?

Full transcript of Harris' cross-examination below -- notice how Angle almost says she's open to meeting any "candidate" who wants to meet with her, then quickly switches to say "constituent."

----

Harris: Well well well Got a little changeup here. Guess who’s calling us? We were able to grab her this morning as she is in DC. Sharron Angle, how you doing Sharron?

Angle: Just fine, Heidi, sorry about the lateness of my call. We are, you know, of course in a different time zone here in Washington, and having some meetings just finalizing the last of the push in this race.

Harris: Well that’s a good thing, we are glad to hear from you. We didn’t want to think you were ducking us. So tell me, why in the heck did you go and have a meeting with a snake?

Angle: Oh, with, with uhh the other guy?

Harris: Well because I can’t use the real words I’d like to use to describe him on the radio, so we’ll just go with “snake.” What possessed you to go talk to this guy?

Angle: Well you know, Heidi, I’m open to discussion with anybody, any candida, uhh constituent that wants to talk to me. I’ve had lots of private conversations with different ones. You and I have had some private discussions about the race….

Harris: Of course…

Angle: And we’ve also had some public conversations, and so when he approached me and wanted to talk, I’m more than willing to be open. That’s more than Harry Reid ever has been able to do. You know he wouldn’t even have a public town hall meeting with all of us over Obamacare, and certainly that’s what we want is just to have availability and accessibility to our elected officials. That’s what’s gone wrong is folks are avoiding the people.

Harris: Yeah, but didn’t your attorney tell you it wasn’t a good idea to meet with the guy because she believed it was going to be a trap?

Angle: Umm we hadn’t had that conversation until after I had the meeting. There was a mix-up there. She had called the campaign and they had failed to call me before the...

Harris: Oh I see.

Angle: Yeah there was just a little mix-up there. I didn’t realize that he was, you know, going to be disingenuous the way he was.

Harris: Well yeah, how did you feel when you found out he tape recorded the conversation? Because a lot of what you said, by the way, I agree with. You know, the Republicans have lost their way, and a lot of the other things you said. But how did it make you feel because that’s pretty lousy to tape record somebody without their knowledge.

Angle: Well, I think that probably more to the point is how did his best friend Sid James feel and other private folks that were in on it. You know, as a public figure I understand that the law doesn’t apply to me equally as to private citizens. But to betray your friends, is really one of those things that is almost unforgivable to be betrayed like that. And so my feelings, I guess, were that I was shocked that he would betray those who are close friends to him.

Harris: Yeah, because apparently Sid James didn’t know anything about this tape recording. That’s why he’s basically dumped Scott Ashjian, left the Tea Party of Nevada, and endorsed you. He was so disgusted by the shady dealings.

Angle: Well it is disgusting, but you know more than that, it is so hurtful to be betrayed by someone that you felt was a friend.

Heidi Harris: No question. Now what about the allegations that some of the things you said to Scott Ashjian in the conversation included, you know, offering him meetings with this person or that person if you dropped out of the race. Some are saying that’s like Chicago style politics.

Sharron Angle: Well, of course, I offered him meetings with people that are friends of mine. Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn are friends of mine, and I would offer that to any constituent in Nevada. You know, that’s the whole point of being your Senator is to have availability and accessibility to Washington, D.C. and the laws that are being made that directly affect us. This was nothing more than a political stunt by him to expose whatever he thought he was exposing, but, of course you have that same access through your Senator, Heidi. If you want to come to Washington, D.C. and go and visit with any of these Senators, the only ones that I can offer up to you are the ones that I have good relationships with, and that’s what I offered to him too, is that I would go with him to these folks and you could talk about those things that are concerning you about the legislation that’s come out of Washington, D.C. like Obamacare, and certainly, Harry Reid has not been talking to any of us about that. He’s not been available to us and he’s not been talking about how this is affecting us right now in our lives in Nevada.

Heidi Harris: Yeah, of course not. Looking forward to our big “Get to know Sharron Angle” event coming up on Saturday. That’s going to be a lot of fun.

Sharron Angle: As am I, and I’m looking forward to being there with you at 2, is that correct?

Heidi Harris: Yes, 2 o’clock, yep 2 o’clock at the Blue Martini.

Sharron Angle: Yeah, in fact, I’d like to come a little early and, you know, I know that, well you know that I like to meet the crowd. I like to have some interaction, so I’m really looking forward to it and seeing you there.

Heidi Harris: Well, that’ll be fun. The doors are going to open at 1 o’clock and we’ll talk about some of the things. We’ve had some questions today from callers about privatizing the VA. We’ll talk about that with you on Saturday, and the Department of Education and some of these other things, and I think, when people get a chance to hear what you have to say about these, without your words being parsed, and your phrases being taken out of context, I think they’re going to have a different attitude. So, we’re looking forward to it.

Sharron Angle: Well, thank you Heidi. And certainly, you know, when it comes to the VA, we owe our veterans everything and we need to do better. We need to make sure that they’re our top priority.

Heidi Harris: No question.

Sharron Angle: So, thank you for the questions. I’m looking forward to it and thanks for taking my call on such short notice and being so spontaneous with my schedule.

Heidi Harris: Well, that’s alright. We can work it out. It’s live radio. Glad to hear from you, Sharron. We’ll see you on Saturday.

Sharron Angle: All right, thank you.

Harris: Thanks, appreciate you being here. Alright, so, better late than never. We’re happy to have her.

Discussion: 57 comments so far...

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  1. Took her and her handlers long enough to come up with THAT lame excuse. LOL.

  2. At one time in our history any one could walk up and knock on the front door of the White House and expect to have it answered.

    If Angle could actually follow through on this, it would be a good thing for everyone.

    You can rest assured that Reid wouldn't want the unwashed masses at his office door.

  3. "If Angle could actually follow through on this, it would be a good thing for everyone."

    And if chocolate cake had the nutritional value of a salad, it would be a good thing for everyone.

    Come back to earth.

  4. Chocolate cake is delicious! It would be awesome if Pizza and never-ending Ribeye steaks would be as healthy as a salad, too.

    @boftx - Do you actually believe the statements you are making, or are you making them just for the reaction?

  5. "None of these things are news items. And neither is 90% of the Angle stories you see here."

    You mean, if Harry Reid met with Brian Sandoval in private and offered him unfettered access to President Obama in return for him DROPPING OUT OF THE RACE, and there was a tape recording of this sleazy deal, you wouldn't be screaming from the rafters?

    Give me a break.

  6. HunterMG,

    I see no reason why I or anyone else would not be pleased with that kind of access if Angle (or any other member of Congress) could deliver on it. I made no comment on the likelyhood of it happening. I was saying the concept is not bad, no matter who makes it. Would any of those who are mocking Angle for saying this be doing the same had Reid said it? I think not.

    It is also a well reported fact that Reid said D.C. tourists smell in the summer, and implied he didn't want to be around them.

  7. Anther day, another embarrassing moment for CraZy ANgle.
    "I got juice!"
    "I got juice!"
    "I got Juice!"

    Are you kidding me???
    You got NOTHIN'!
    "I can get you in to see a couple of Teabaggers!"
    Woo Hoo!!!
    That and a buck and a half will get me a cup of joe.

    You can't spin this away, dear.
    The damage is done.
    You have further impugned yourself and the hand that feeds you.

  8. Y'see, Sharron Mangle has simply once again been misunderstood.

    She didn't REALLY mean special insider "juice," she just meant that ALL of her constituents would have access.

    She didn't REALLY mean the Gulf spill victims' fund was a Harry Reid slush fund, she was just concerned about accountability.

    She didn't REALLY mean "take Harry Reid (and others) out" LITERALLY, via "Second Amendment remedies," she just meant ("wink, wink") defeat him on election day.

    She didn't REALLY mean _____________________

    She didn't REALLY mean _____________________

    She didn't REALLY mean _____________________

    etc, etc, etc...

    Dolt.

    http://sharronangle.blogspot.com

  9. She didn't REALLY mean the Reid MGM Grand assistance was part of the Obama Stimulus legislation...

    After someone had to quietly tell her that it wasn't.

    Dolt.

  10. Angle is a poor candidate at best. A nit wit at worst. Would I vote for her? Not in the primary, but against Harry Reid in a national election? Yes!

    I'd vote for my dead relatives before Harry Reid. The worst Angle could do as a freshman Senator with no power is mark time until the next election when we replace her.

    The worst Hapless Harry could do? I shudder to think. As the Senate Majority Leader and the second or third most powerful elected official in DC, he can do irreparable harm even beyond the carnage he has already created.

  11. @boftx - I would scoff at ANYONE who made a ridiculous claim to allow contituents full access. See, I'm not anti-Reed, anti-Angle, anti-Ashjian, or anti-anyone else. I'm anti-idiot. While I honestly don't see Harry Reid being an effective Senator anymore, prefering to pork it up instead of solving real problems, I can't possibly fathom that nit-wit Sharron Angle don't ANY good for the state. She's a HORRIBLE candidate. And honestly, it's not her fault that she was put in this position. It's the voters who decided that SHE was the best candidate to lead the Replican ticket. I would shocked and amazed if she lost by less than a 15% margin. Any less, and the Republican voters of Nevada have clearly sacrificed common sense and rational decisions in order to "just vote out a Democrat". Jon Ensign is a HORRIBLE Senator, yet you don't see the Republican base bashing him!

    It's a sad, sad thing that the choices presented to us are Reid and Angle, but placing Angle into office for 6 years would be a horrible mistake for the state of Nevada.

  12. HunterMG,

    It's not that I think Angle will do good for Nevada, but rather I think she will be able to do far less harm to the country than Reid would.

    I would have preferred to have seen Sandoval run for Senator instead of Governor, but then I'd have to wonder who would have run against Reid Jr.

  13. @boftx - I fail to see exactly how she WOULDN'T do harm. She's made her positions perfectly clear, with no illusions to even having a spirited debate. She would attempt to roll back YEARS of improvements to suit her personal, religious fanatic, thinking. She certainly isn't a voice for the people, in my opinion. The thing called the Constitution isn't open for debate or a certain group's interpretation. That's why you propose ammendments. Her very vocal opinion's oh how the Constitution is flawed show that she is not capable of leading this state to progress.

    In my opinion, of course.

  14. HunterMG,

    I won't disagree very much at all with your statements regarding Angle's positions. But as others have pointed out many, many times she will be a junior Senator with no pull whatsoever. Therefore I say she will not be able to do any harm. Even if the Republicans were to regain the Senate with a handful of TEA Party candidates, they would have to face the same filibuster tactics as they used and would never be able to bring 8 or 9 red dogs over to them to break one.

    No, the TEA Party contingent would be completely powerless to move forward with anything that most of us would consider to be radical.

    My own preference right now would be to have either Party control the Senate by 1 vote (with Chuck Schumer as Leader if it was the Democrats), and the Republicans control the House.

  15. @boftx - as a registered Democrat, and pretty liberal I might add, I don't like what any of my elected officials are doing right now. I'd very much like to see a moderate Dem take Harry Reid's place, though I can't imagine that happening.
    I will agree with you, to a degree, that I would like to see the Dem's hold the Senate by 1, and the Repub's hold the House, by 1. Better yet, I'd love to see a complete do-over with NONE of the elected officials currently in office be allowed to run again. However, money runs EVERYTHING in politics.
    So, we're stuck with what we have, which is still a much better system than anywhere else in the world.

  16. HunterMG,

    Though you and I have different politics (and I am not a Republican, I'm registered as unaffiliated) we can find common ground upon which to build agreement.

    If the people who are involved in local politics, parties at the bottom level, would do the same, then we could have some sane representatives on the ballot and maybe see true compromise come into vogue again.

    One thing that has helped me learn to compromise is being married to my wife. She, too, is not only a liberal Democrat, but a proud self-proclaimed socialist. :)

  17. talk about juice harry has lots of it . more than 3 senators . in fact mitch and harry are good friends . if harry and sharron both called i bet mitch would call harry first .

  18. "But as others have pointed out many, many times she will be a junior Senator with no pull whatsoever."

    Except one Senator can actually block any Senate business (legislation, debate, etc.) just by withholding unanimous consent.

    "Because unanimous consent is required to avoid a filibuster and post-cloture debate, just one senator can place a "hold" on any senate business by indicating their willingness to withhold such consent. Worse, Senate customs have evolved to allow "secret holds," where a senator tells his party leader to place the hold and the leader blocks progress on a matter without ever revealing which senator is responsible for this obstruction."

    "Senators have long used holds to "take hostages." Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), for example, recently placed a hold on over 70 nominees from the Obama administration in an attempt to force the federal government to award a $35 billion defense contract to Northrop Grumman. Recently, however, senators have also begun to use these holds simply to prevent business from moving quickly on the Senate floor."

    Much more serious that just voting "no," Sharron would be capable of stopping ANY legislation she disagrees with single-handedly, even if 99 other Senators want to see it passed.

    99 to Sharron could paralyze the Senate.

  19. saying Angle would do far less harm than Ried is one of the most ridiculous things i've ever read

  20. I for one have no interest in banning gbigs/ldribbler. However, I would be very interested in him becoming a "trusted commenter" by disclosing who he is. I'm dying to know if he was honest about his business/tax/financial representations and if they were accurate.

    I doubt he will become a trusted commenter because he is afraid of sunshine.

    Why would anyone making political comments want to call himself a by a user name with "dribble" in it?

  21. At this point, with the leads of either candidate being within the margin of error, the polls are not particularly meaningful and the election will, absent some unforeseen event, really turn on the GOTV efforts of the two parties.

  22. Why on earth would you assume yoiu won't be granted trusted status? Have you done something? There are loads of conservatives whose posting are no more right wing than yours that have been granted that status.

    I say again, I assume your lack of willlingness must be based on a desire to not disclose your identity. Even if you are right, you could open a new account which uses your real name as your username so that you are no different than the rest of us.

  23. Bottom line dribble is you haven't requested it. OKay then just tell us your name. Be open like the rest of us.

  24. At the risk of being off topic, I'm going to dive into this discussion about names, etc.

    What I saw happen was this.

    The user gbigs appeared to have created a Facebook account with the name "Gee Bigs" in order to post on the old Facebook restricted stories. When the Sun went to the new comment system I *think* he must have tried to register as a trusted user with that Facebook account. The Sun picked up on it as a violation of the user agreement and revoked both of his accounts.

    At that point he came back with a new account (pjoke), and another user (who has since been removed) started raising hell about gbigs being back and his new account was removed. He then came back a second time with yet another name (solsinner), and the same user as before started complaining. This time not only was the new "solsinner" account removed, but so was the person doing the complaining.

    The person who had been pursuing what appeared to be a personal vendetta was posting the same message 10 - 20 times a day, which of course was a violation of the user agreement.

    Now that the main source of complains is gone, gbigs (ldribbler) is back again.

    I don't have a problem with that either, IF he follows the user agreement, which he basically always has except for the "Gee Bigs" account so far as I have seen. (Though I will say I think gbigs can be overly rude at times.)

    As for privacy, I'm not a big fan of the new disclosure rules, but understand why the Sun has gone to it. At least they are not forcing it upon everyone. There are both liberal and conservatives who are not opting in, that is fine.

  25. NotForAngle,

    I answered your question about my being an Angle supporter earlier. You may have missed it among the other posts dealing with the question of gbigs. But just to make it clear, I am NOT an Angle supporter in the way that I think you mean. I do not contribute to her campaign or do anything along those lines, and I am registered as "Unaffiliated". I have presented arguments in favor of voting for her instead of Reid even though I detest some of her beliefs (which I have also stated in the past) because I feel strongly that Reid should not be Majority Leader.

    No, I am not trying to whitewash gbigs, I was just giving my observations of what happened and trying to deduce some of the reasons. Like you, I do not find all of what ldribbler (gbigs) has said to be compelling.

    It is unlikely that we will ever know exactly why things have happened as they have. But it is always fun to speculate. :)

  26. NotForAngle,

    You asked me the same question on this article: http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/ralston...

    I answered it there, not on this one, my mistake. I'll leave it to you to read the original answer rather than put up a duplicate post.

  27. NotForAngle: Something gbigs/pjoke/solsinner/ldribble won't tell you about Rasmussen's poll?

    They throw out "None of the Above," and do not include it in their polling of Nevada, according to Ralston.

    Usually, that makes no difference, but it's HUGE in Nevada, and likely overstates the number for Angle.

    Thus, Rasmussen's polls for Nevada continue to look nothing like every other poll... because they ignore the 3rd most-popular candidate for Senate.

  28. CNN was saying today that in their latest poll "None of the Above" was showing about 10%. If I recall correctly, they had Angle at 42% and Reid at 40%, well within the margin of error. They didn't say what Ashjian had, but did throw out the 10% number for "None of the Above" as being significant.

    This was on Blitzer during a segment with John King this afternoon.

  29. "Angle: If I win, I will get any constituent who wants a meeting in to see powerful GOP senators"

    Ed, isn't that kind of a tacit admission that she'd be largely irrelevant in Washington? It strikes me as desperate. "Please like me, I can introduce you to my powerful co-workers!"

  30. Kevin, if Angle could guarantee you could meet face to face with Ensign I think you would find that tempting for one reason or another. :)

  31. @boftx: "It is also a well reported fact that Reid said D.C. tourists smell in the summer, and implied he didn't want to be around them."

    So what? Who cares? It's not as though he said second amendment remedies would be used to keep tourists out of the capitol, or that tourists wearing black are satanic.

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