Sharron Angle: Campaign to defeat Harry Reid ‘a calling’

Associated Press

Published Wednesday, July 14, 2010 | 11:46 a.m.

Updated Wednesday, July 14, 2010 | 3:55 p.m.

Leila Navidi

Sharron Angle speaks during a debate among the Republican U.S. Senate candidates on "Face to Face with Jon Ralston" at the KVBC studios in Las Vegas Tuesday, May 18, 2010.

Republican Sharron Angle says her campaign to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada is "a calling" from God and that her faith is helping her endure a fiercely competitive race in which Democrats have depicted her as a conservative extremist. "When you have God in your life ... he directs your path," Angle told the Christian Broadcasting Network in an interview posted on its website Wednesday.

Asked why she entered the race, Angle said "the reason is a calling."

"When God calls you he also equips you and He doesn't just say, 'Well today you're going to run against Harry Reid,'" the tea party favorite said.

In the Bible "Moses has his preparatory time. Paul had his preparatory time. Even Jesus had his preparatory time," the former legislator said, citing her years in public office as her preparation for the race.

"God knew all of this in advance," Angle added. "I don't know what's coming up tomorrow but I do know that He is there. He saw it and that He has provided a way of escape and a way for me to endure."

In a wide-ranging interview, Angle said her media appearances are guided by the need to raise money for her campaign and she defended an overhaul of her campaign website in which many of her earlier positions on Social Security and other issues were rewritten, condensed or deleted.

Angle, a Southern Baptist, has called herself a faith-based politician who prays daily. Among her positions, she opposes abortion in all circumstances, including rape and incest.

Since her come-from-behind victory in the June 8 primary, Angle has appeared largely on conservative media outlets. She said her public schedule is being driven by the need to raise money and she gets the best return for her time on conservative programs, which drive up donations.

"The whole point of an interview is to ... earn something with it and I'm not going to earn anything from people who are there to badger me and use my words to batter me with," she said.

In mainstream media outlets "there's no earnings for me there," she added.

Asked about the retooling of her website, she said she was advised by consultants to condense the long-running text on her site. Reid's campaign later posted the website's original language.

"I am pretty wordy," Angle said. "We're still working on those precise statements."