i read his blog fairly regularly- he writes better than some others i could mention. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mickey-kaus/why-i-filed-to-run-for-us_b_497693.html [rquoter]Why I Filed to Run for U.S. Senate Today, I filed papers to become a candidate for the United States Senate. I have no special beef with the incumbent, Senator Boxer. She is a state-of-the-art Democrat. But to be "state-of-the-art" in our party is not such a good thing anymore. "State of the art" means the incumbent has learned to please the party's interest groups, often at the expense of the needs of average individuals and the party's own ideals. It means the incumbent supports a "card check" bill that would effectively take away the secret ballot from workers in order to give more power to the big unions-- including public employee unions--whose influence over our great industries and our government has led to disaster. "State of the art" means the incumbent endorses a misguided immigrant legalization scheme that would create a huge incentive for more illegal immigration--before we're sure our broken border has been fixed to withstand it. We tried the legalization approach in 1986. A wave of illegal immigration followed. Another new wave would again bid down the wages of unskilled American (and legal immigrant) workers--the people who've been hurt the most in the economy of the past three decades. It shouldn't be the policy of the Democratic party to make it worse for them. These aren't minor questions. One affects the organization of the entire economy. The other could irreversibly alter the quality of American life. I am a lifelong Democrat. But on those issues, and others, what has become the party's dogma--what you have to say and think if you want to run for office as an anointed Democrat--no longer passes the test of common sense. Common sense tells you that when you can't fire bad teachers because their union won't allow it, you'll get bad schools. Common sense tells you that when you keep flooding the labor market with new unskilled workers, wages will deterioriate. To see why the state-of-the-Democratic-art isn't working for the nation, you only have to look at the state of the public schools, the state of our auto industry, and the state of our local and national budgets . This isn't the Democratic party I signed up for. It's not the party many common sense Democratic voters signed up for. I intend to try my best in the months ahead to offer these common sense voters a way to make their presence known and change our party's course before it's too late. I want to debate these issues and offer alternatives, not just say 'yes' to the party's entrenched powers. Democrats deserve a choice too.[/rquoter]
The Kaus Manifesto [rquoter]Where I'm Coming From I've always been a Democrat. My father was a Democrat, my mother is a Democrat, my brother's a Democrat. Several years ago--it was the mid-80s, when Democrats were maybe even a little more anxious than they are now--I asked myself why I was a Democrat. The answer was that I believe in equality--not equal incomes, but equal respect. As a recent president said: [W]e are all equal in the eyes of God. But as Americans that is not enough--we must be equal in the eyes of each other. The president who said that, unfortunately for Democrats, was Ronald Reagan. What Reagan didn't admit--and as a Republican, couldn't admit--was that in order to achieve this American type of equality, we need an active and effective government. That's always been true, but it's especially true these days, when the income gap generated in our economy seems to be growing relentlessly, due to forces over which we have at best partial control. We don't need government to equalize or rearrange income. We need government to insure that disparate incomes don't translate into a more fundamental, nasty and unAmerican sort of inequality. The universal health insurance legislation, recently passed by Congress, does part of that job. It's one thing to have rich people and poor people--that's capitalism. But it's another thing if those differences of money routinely translate into differences of life and death. This is why I think the health bill, for all its flaws, stands as a great triumph for President Obama and the Democratic party. What's not clear is whether it's a beginning, or an end. Because in too many other respects, our Democratic party has already failed. It's failed because the party's own dogma--what you simply have to say and do if you are running for office as an anointed, establishment Democrat- has itself become an obstacle to realizing the ideals of equality and decency that Democratic voters believe in. In too many areas, the party that believes in government, has become captive of the interests that it serves--its so-called "constituencies." Actually, "captive" isn't right. That implies there's a party to capture, when all too often here in California it seems as if the party that's supposed to represent all of us has vanished. All that's left are the big interest groups--the unions, the ethnic lobbies, the gambling interests, the Hollywood money men. They've perfected the art of raising funds and getting their handpicked choices elected. They draw the district lines so there's no chance of not getting elected. Once in office, their ambitious pawns take care of the unions and lobbies who put them there, which in turn keeps the money flowing and keeps them in power. It's a self-perpetuating machine. State of the art. Unfortunately it increasingly listens only to those who run it. Average citizens aren’t consulted, and when they speak up they aren’t listened to. After all, who are they? The Democratic machine—increasingly—serves neither their interests, nor the requirements of common sense. It's leading our state and nation into a dead end. Unless we change it, it will destroy our party. Let me take just two issues--important issues--to illustrate what I mean. First, the issue of organized labor. I don't agree with the right wingers who argue unions are always wrong. Unions have done a lot for this country--they were especially important when giant employers tried to take advantage of a harsh economy in the last century, not only keeping down wages but speeding up assembly lines and worse, forcing workers to risk their lives and health. If you think about it, unions have been the opposite of selfish. By modern standards they've been stunningly altruistic, lobbying for job safety rules and portable pensions and Social Security and all sorts of government services that, if they were really selfish, they might have opposed--because if the government will guarantee that your workplace is safe, and that your retirement is secure ... well, then you don't need a union so much, do you? Yet unions pushed through all these reforms because they were the right thing to do, even as they made unions less necessary. And we are no longer living in a World War II economy where big, slow moving bureaucratic organizations are the engines of prosperity. Only fast-moving, flexible organizations prosper today. Technology changes too rapidly--and those changes themselves tend to make everything move even faster. Firms have to be able to make decisions rapidly--expand here, contract there, change the way they work every day. That was the lesson of Japan--how 1,000 little improvements in productivity can add up to a big advantage. But our union system is stuck in 1950, when it was considered a glorious achievement to generate thick books full of work rules that restricted what could be changed. At some automobile plants, every position on the assembly line was considered a distinct job classification. You wouldn't want an "Installer Level II" to have to do the job of an "Installer Level I," would you? Then came the competition from the Japanese factories--including many in the U.S.--where they spent their time building cars instead of work rules, and there was only one job classification: "production." If something needed doing, you did it. Is it any wonder they cleaned Detroit's clock for two decades? Keep in mind that Detroit's union, the United Auto Workers, is one of our best. It's democratic. It's not corrupt. Its leadership has often been visionary. Yet working within our archaic union system, it still helped bring our greatest industry to its knees. And the taxpayers were stuck with the bill for bailing it out--while UAW workers didn't even take a cut of $1 an hour in their $28/hour basic pay. How many Californians would like $27 an hour manufacturing jobs? Actually there was a good auto factory in California, the NUMMI plant in Fremont. It got sucked under when GM went broke. Yet the answer of the Democratic establishment to the failure of 1950s unionism has been more 1950s unionism. If workers see what happened to General Motors and don't want to choose a union by secret ballot--as they didn't at Honda, for example--well then, eliminate the secret ballot! And impose mandatory arbitration, which means a bureaucrat from Washington will fly out and impose a settlement that looks like all the other settlements in the same industry--a sure way to stop any innovative changes in production methods. This isn't how we're going to get prosperity back. But it's the official Democratic party dogma. State of the art. No dissent allowed. Barbara Boxer has to toe the line and endorse labor's push to effectively eliminate the secret ballot. Government unions are even more problematic--and as private sector unions have failed in the marketplace, government unions are increasingly the only unions left. If there are limits on what private unions can demand--if they win too much, as we've seen, their employers tend to disappear--there is no such limit on what government unions can demand. They just have to get the politicians to raise your taxes to pay for it, and by funding the Democratic machine they acquire just the politicians they need. No wonder that in our biggest school systems it's become virtually impossible to fight the teachers' union and fire bad teachers. The giant Los Angeles Unified school system, with 33,000 teachers, fires only about 21 a year, or fewer than 1 in 1,000, according an L.A. Times investigation. Now either they have the greatest teachers in the world or something is very wrong. Talk to parents and you'll know the answer. When I was growing up in L.A., practically everyone went to public schools. Even in the affluent neighborhoods. Only the discipline cases, the juvenile delinquents, went off to military academy. It was vaguely disreputable. Now any parent who can afford it pays a fortune to escape them. The old liberal ideal of a common public education has been destroyed, And it's been destroyed in large part not by Republicans, but by the teachers' unions. Barbara Boxer can't say that. She's state of the art Democrat. No wonder that, as the private economy has faltered, we increasingly have a two-tier economy: If you're an insider, a government employee, you're in good shape. Even if you don't do a very good job, you won't be fired. Even in hard times, a brutal recession, Washington will send billions in stimulus funds so that you don't get laid off. You won't even have to take much of a pay cut. And you can retire like an aristocrat at taxpayer expense. But if you're an outsider, trying to survive in a world of $10/hour jobs, competing with immigrant labor, paying for your own health care, forced to send your children to lousy public schools run by unfireable teachers and $100,000 bureaucrats--well, good luck to you. But be sure to vote Democratic. "The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life, But we politicians — pushed by our friends in labor — gradually expanded pay and benefits . . . while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages that pay ex-workers almost as much as current workers. Talking about this is politically unpopular and potentially even career suicide . . . but at some point, someone is going to have to get honest about the fact." I didn't say that. Willie Brown, a Democratic hero, said that, explaining why the state may go the way of Vallejo and General Motors. But you won't catch Barbara Boxer saying it. She does not want to commit career suicide. She's state of the art. We need a non-retired Democrat who can tell the unions "no." Second issue: immigration. If you're a Democrat and resist the party's new dogma on immigration, you'll inevitably be called "anti immigrant" or worse. So let me affirm: 1) Immigrants have been good for America and are still good for America. 2) They are especially good for California--those who come from south of the border and those who come from overseas. Most are working hard to help their families. The place wouldn't function very well without them, including those who came here illegally. But the party's dogma on immigration--they've never met an amnesty they didn't like--is at odds with common sense. Common sense tells you that half the world would happily move to our country if given a chance. That wouldn't be a desirable result. Los Angeles and the Bay Area would soon look like Rio de Janeiro, with vast communities of shacks and slums. Americans used to working for at least the minimum hourly wage would find themselves competing with good, hard-working people for whom our minimum wage seems like a good daily wage. Or maybe a good monthly wage. Wages for low-skilled work would plunge, and the disparity between those workers' lives and the successful rich at the top would be almost intolerable in a modern democracy, inevitably corroding equality of respect. Common sense tells you that if we're going to stop half the world from moving here, we need a border that works. We need to tell some people "no." Common sense also tells you that if we draw the line, and people for understandable reasons cross the line illegally, granting them amnesty isn't going to discourage others from following them. It's going to encourage them. Look what happened to the people that went before us. They got in! Ah, the Chamber of Commerce and the Dems say, but we have a "comprehensive" immigration reform. Sure, we offer legalization--a "path to citizenship"-- to the 12 million illegals who are already here. But we'll also toughen border enforcement--employer sanctions, and border patrol aircraft! So you don't have to worry about a new wave of immigration. But we tried exactly this "comprehensive" bargain before, back in 1986, when we were all honest enough to call it "amnesty." It failed. Oh, the amnesty part worked fine. It was the border enforcement that failed. And sure enough, the result was the 12 million illegals we're now talking about giving another amnesty to. Why do I get the feeling that too many Democratic politicians eager for new voters--and businessmen eager for cheap labor--wouldn't really mind if it failed again? After all, then there would be a new group of illegal immigrants to legalize -- more potential Democrats! A new way to rev up the Latino "base" vote. And more ways to call anyone who wants to break the cycle of amnesties "anti-immigrant." Or worse. We need a Democrat honest enough to stand up to the "amnesty" lobby and tell undocumented immigrants living here that they will have to wait. Amnesty isn't happening anytime soon. We need to get control of our borders first--through steps including 1) A requirement that employers verify the legal status of new hires; 2) stiff sanctions on employers if they don't; 3) an actual, physical border fence (not mass deportations). Plus 4) some system to monitor entries and exits to deter visa overstays and 5) greater avenues for legal immigration, including immigration from Mexico. If these measures work, survive the inevitable lawsuits, and send a clear message to the world that the game has changed--then in a few years we can start talking about some kind of legalization. That’s what the voters, in poll after poll, say they want. Fix the border first. But the politicians—of both parties--don’t listen. They listen only to the Latino political elite. Dazzled by the prospect of millions of new voters, they insist on an immediate amnesty and exclude even the possibility of the sensible, border-first, solution. It's not "comprehensive" enough, they tell us, as if that ends the argument. Now, I haven't traveled around the state on a "listening tour." I've been living my life here in Los Angeles. But almost every day I run into someone--my doctor, maybe, the friend of a friend, a neighbor walking his dog--and I hear a version of the same thing. "I'm a good Democrat. I've been a Democrat all my life. I'm for all the good Democratic things--ending discrimination, fighting poverty, health care, the environment. But I don't like what's happening. I don't like what the unions are doing to the schools." ... Or "I think we're going broke because we're paying too many government employees too much money to retire." ... Or "I don't like what the Democrats are doing on immigration." ... Or "this isn't the Democratic Party I signed up for." I call these people Common Sense Democrats. I'm running for the Senate to give them a way to make their voices heard. They’re not being heard now. If you are a Democrat who venerates the historic achievements of labor unions, but who has doubts about whether the immense power of the teachers' unions to protect bad teachers has been good for the public schools and for California's children, is there a place for you in Barbara Boxer's Democratic party? If you are a Democrat who believes government should help those Americans who work hard for little pay, but you have doubts that giving amnesty to undocumented immigrants before we secure the borders will serve that end, is there a place for you in Barbara Boxer's Democratic party? If you are a Democrat who venerates the achievement of labor unions, but who looks at the fate of General Motors and has doubts about whether more UAW-style, adversarial, Wagner Act unionism is the tonic the economy needs--is there a place for you in the Democratic party? If you are a Democrat who believes we need government, but a government that works, at a price taxpayers can afford--not a government that cuts services to pay for the bloated pensions of its own workers--is there a place for you in the Democratic party? If you're one of these Democrats, join me and let the party machine know you can't be ignored any longer.[/rquoter]
well I read it just to argue with you but it was pretty good. I don't agree with everything, particularly his rant on teacher unions. teaching is probably still an underpaid occupation, I don't know about how tough it is to fire bad teachers. even though I've been arguing in an immigration thread, I'm pretty apathetic to that issue in general. I just don't think its that big of a deal either way.
It totally depends on the contract with the district. The district I work for which is the second largest in the nation and has almost 700,000 students has a contract that is fairly easy to fire teachers. Basically you start working as if on probation and can be fired for just about anything the first two years. After that it only takes two unsatisfactory stulls(reviews by administration) in a row and teachers can be fired. There are other things like cheating on standardized testing and child abuse that can get you fired right away. That seems about average. I don't know too many jobs where you are hired but are still on probation for two years. It doesn't seem that hard. You just have to have an administrator that knows how to do it.
He's running as a Democrat. He'll get trounced in the primary. Too bad, he seems like a voice of reason.
Mickey's concession statement: http://kaus.sitebuilder.completecampaigns.com/news/newsitem.php?section=PRS&id=8561&showcat=2&seq=1 ------------ Concession Statement Mickey Kaus claimed a form of victory Tuesday night after he apparently drew more than 5% of the Democratic primary vote against three-term incumbent Barbara Boxer: STATEMENT OF MICKEY KAUS I congratulate Senator Boxer on her primary victory. But the results send more than one message. I'm a blogger. I spent about $40,000. I had one part-time aide, a recent college grad who was prepping for his LSATs. We had no headquarters, no pollsters, no highly paid strategists and consultants. We had a couple of laptops and an old Volvo. And we still ripped off almost* 100,000 votes from a three term incumbent because there is a large group of voters who are dissatisfied with the prevailing dogma of the Democratic party. I entered the race because I wanted to start up an argument among Democrats about the party's direction--about the need to say "no" to the unions and to insist on securing the border before we even talk about amnesty. We not only started that argument, but perhaps we helped demonstrate who, in the end, is going to win it. That's because there's no question that if we'd had more money we could have gotten a much bigger vote. Many Democratic pols know this deep down, I think. They know their days are numbered if they continue to obey the labor bosses and amnesty fantasists while denying average California voters the common sense solutions they want: working borders, working schools, affordable government, a flexible economy and higher wages. Those common sense policies don't mean abandoning the traditional Democratic ideal of equal respect for all citizens, regardless of income. They're the only way we are going to achieve that ideal. The pols are leading us down a dead end. This election has shown their weakness. It's not a good sign when their anointed choice for Senator, a well-known three-term incumbent, loses 20% of the vote in their own primary against a couple of complete unknowns--after two transcontinental trips by President Obama to support her. It's a weakness I hope other Common Sense Democrats will exploit, soon. ************* Thanks to all those who assisted and supported me--sometimes secretly--in this brief campaign. I especially want to thank Ted Howard (hope the LSATs went well), Marc Danziger, Rob Long, Scott Immergut, Darla Brown, Emily Calderone, Jodie Burke, plus Mystery Mavens 1 through 4. ************* I also want to say a word about the passing of Stephen Rivers, a seemingly ubiquitous and indefatigable activist for Democratic causes. I didn't know him that well, but when I saw him at events or ran into him at the all-night Sav-On, he was always friendly and helpful, even though he knew we disagreed on some issues. He didn't like the idea of my campaign--as a Boxer loyalist he wrote on my Facebook page that he wished there was a "dislike" button so he could use it on me. I thought that was a bit harsh. But when I ran into him in a sidewalk cafe a few days after that, he was cheerful, not scornful, advising me that my brownie run to Pain Quotidien was "not a good use of your time, Senator." He didn't act as if he was a few weeks away from dying. There was no bitterness. He must have known what was ahead, but he didn't want it to disrupt everyone else's lives. It's not only Democrats who will miss him.
Just a reminder... Rasmussen has shown a roughly 6 point house effect in polling this year (source) which doesn't mean they're wrong but does mean that an average poll would probably show a 5 point Angle lead rather than 11 points.
too long too read but i'll be happy if someone, anyone i dont care if they are democrat or republican to get that arrogant please call me senator boxer out of office.
I'm guessing this was after one of their famous "Mid course corrections" though at least they bothered to cover it at all, which is what they tend not to do when the data goes against them. But hey, at least they did better than they did in 2000. It has nothing to do with what you posted. That's why he posted it. Really haven't you been here long enough to not be such a naif at this point with respect to why basso would post something nonresponsive?
Some of this crazy ass Oath Keeper's positions: ANGLE ON ANGLE: PEOPLE CALL ME "WACKY" "[Mainstream Republicans] always try to marginalize me, treat me like I don't exist. They say, 'You're too conservative.' Was Thomas Jefferson too conservative? I'm tired of some people calling me wacky." -Sharron Angle, 3/21/2010 Angle Was Selected As the Worst Nevada Assembly Member Twice. As a freshman member of the assembly, Angle received a rating of D+ in a poll conducted by the Review-Journal and was selected as the worst of the 11 freshmen assembly members. In 2005, Angle was again selected as the "worst member of the assembly." [Review-Journal, 5/30/1999, 6/21/2005] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE ON WORKING FAMILIES' ISSUES Angle: Families With Two Working Parents Are Wrong and Unacceptable. In October 2009, Sharron Angle told the Gazette-Journal, "Right now, we say in a traditional home one parent stays home with the children and the other provides the financial support for that family. That is the acceptable and right thing to do. If we begin to expand that, not only do we dilute the resources that are available, we begin to dilute things like health care, retirement, all the things offered to families that help them be a family." [Gazette-Journal, 10/22/09] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE ON UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE Angle: Unemployed Nevadans Who Depend On Unemployment Insurance Are "Spoiled." During a May 2010 interview on KRNV, Angle said, "You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job, but it doesn't pay as much. And so that's what's happened to us is that we have put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry and said you don't want the jobs that are available." [KRNV, 5/25/2010] One Week Later, Angle Said Extending Unemployment Insurance Is "A Terrible Thing." During a June 2010 interview on KDWN's Heidi Harris in the Morning, Angle said extending unemployment insurance was "a terrible thing. You know, I was criticized for saying that Americans won't do certain jobs and the reason that they won't do certain jobs is because they get more pay on unemployment than they can get to work those... those good jobs that are really out there. What has happened is Harry Reid has just extended unemployment and when he did that he not only made it so that people are less employable, but he makes it so that they want to be dependent on the government. This entitlement pays them more than getting a real job." [Heidi Harris in the Morning, 6/2/2010] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE ON NEVADANS WHO WORK IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY Angle Ridiculed Nevada Families Who Work In The Hospitality Industry, Saying Their Jobs Are Ones "Americans Don't Do." In a September 2009 town hall meeting Sharron Angle said, "My father bought a small business out in front of the convention center in Reno... a motel...we did those things as a kid growing up that Americans don't do. We cleaned bathrooms and made beds and swept floors, did laundry, those kinds of things." Angle later repeated her sentiment at a Las Vegas candidate forum, telling the crowd, "We did those jobs Americans don't do. We cleaned bathrooms, and made beds and swept floors and hung out laundry, because that was the lifeblood of our family." [Angle Town Hall, 9/1/2009; Sun City Forum, 2/5/2010] Nevada Casino Executive Sue Lowden Slammed Angle Over Her Comment. In a May 2010 blog post, Sue Lowden, Executive Vice President of Archon Corporation, which owns the Pioneer Hotel & Gambling Hall in Laughlin, wrote, "What? 'That Americans don't do'? There are no Americans cleaning bathrooms, making beds, sweeping floors and doing laundry in Nevada's casinos and resorts? Or was Sharron suggesting that the large number of first- and second-generation immigrant-Americans who toil in Nevada's hospitality industry aren't 'real' Americans? Or was she trying to infer that all of these jobs are being filled by illegal aliens?" [Sue Lowden blog post, 5/26/2010] Nevada Hispanic Caucus: Angle's "Demeaning And Discriminatory Rhetoric Indicates Sharron Angle's Disrespect For The Majority Of Hardworking Nevadans." In a May 2010 statement, the Nevada Hispanic Caucus said, "We at the Nevada Hispanic Caucus are offended and appalled at the comments made by U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle, inferring custodial work is something 'Americans don't do.' Her demeaning and discriminatory rhetoric indicates Sharron Angle's disrespect for the majority of hardworking Nevadans. [Nevada Hispanic Caucus, 5/26/2010] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE THAT ABORTION CAUSES BREAST CANCER Angle Sponsored Legislation Associating Abortion With Breast Cancer. In 1999, the Associated Press reported Angle proposed a bill that "would have required doctors to inform women seeking abortions about a controversial theory linking an increased risk of breast cancer with abortion." Angle said she was pro-life and would like to see Nevada's abortion law overturned. When Angle introduced the legislation again in 2001, the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote that critics responded by saying the alleged link was not supported by scientific evidence, calling the bill a "scare tactic." [Associated Press, 4/10/1999; Las Vegas Review Journal, 2/16/2001] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Angle Opposed Prohibiting The Death Sentence For The Mentally Impaired. In April 2001, Angle voted against a bill that prohibited the death penalty for a person who was mentally impaired. Assembly Bill 353 would have allowed a defendant charged with first degree murder to file a motion to declare he was mentally impaired. Upon a motion being filed, the court would hold a hearing to determine whether the defendant was mentally impaired, and if so found, would exempt that individual from receiving a death sentence. [AB 353, 4/24/2001] Angle Opposed Two-Year Moratorium On Executions: Everybody We Kill On Death Row Wants To Die Anyway. In May 2001, Angle opposed a two year moratorium on executions saying, "We haven't executed people who did not want to be executed for years and years. There is a fellow on death row now who killed someone when I was in high school." [Las Vegas Review-Journal, 5/17/2001] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE TO ELIMINATE SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE Sharron Angle Would "Wipe Out" Social Security, "Phase Out" Medicare. In May 2010, the Associated Press reported, "Sharron Angle wants to wipe out Social Security." During a May 2010 debate on Face to Face, Sharron Angle said, "We need to phase Medicare and Social Security out in favor of something privatized." She later added, "Going forward we need to phase it out, give people an opportunity to either opt into the old system or go for a new system where they have their own healthcare savings account or they have their own retirement savings account which is portable and goes with them from job to job and for those who are entering the workforce right now they come on to the new system so it's a phased-in system so it's something [inaudible] privatize." [Associated Press, 5/27/2010; [Face to Face Debate, 5/19/10] Lowden Campaign Chief: Angle's Call For Eliminating Social Security Is "Completely Out Of Step" And "Politically Unpalatable." In May 2010, Lowden Campaign Manager Robert Uithoven told the Associated Press that Angle's plan for Social Security "is completely out of step. In a state that has a huge number of retirees, it's not a proposal Nevadans ... would back." He later told Politico on "(Angle's) views on issues such as 'the full elimination' of Social Security are politically unpalatable -- to win Democratic and independent voters in a closely contested general election..." [Associated Press, 5/27/2010; Politico, 6/5/2010] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE ON WALL STREET REFORM Angle Opposes Any Efforts To Reform or Hold Wall Street Accountable. According to a Las Vegas Sun article outlining where Senate candidates stand on Wall Street Reform, "Before you ask Angle how Wall Street should be reformed, you need to ask her if it needs to be reformed. 'No,' she said in a written response." While other candidates disagreed on precisely how Wall Street should be reformed, Sharron Angle was the only one of five Senate candidates to respond in a written questionnaire from the Las Vegas Sun that no action should be taken to fix Wall Street. [Las Vegas Sun, 4/28/2010] Angle Blamed Financial Crisis On "Too Much Regulation Across The Board." According to an April 18, 2010 article in the Las Vegas Sun, Angle told reporter David Schwartz the cause of the financial crisis was "too much regulation across the board." [Las Vegas Sun, 4/18/2010] Angle Says We Should Leave Bailed Out Banks To Do Whatever They Want. When asked a question about failed banks giving bonuses to executives and financial reform, Sharron Angle said, "Well you don't give them the money in the first place, but now that they've got it, I don't see that we go in and we tell business what to do. That's not what government's supposed to be about." [Face to Face with Jon Ralston, 2/3/2010] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE ON THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT Angle Would Eliminate Departments Of Education And Energy. In a March 2010 e-interview with the conservative website Nevada News and Views, Sharron Angle told the site her proposed federal cuts "Should include the Department of Education, Department of Energy ...I include these cuts in my economic policy for taking back our government." [Nevada News and Views, 3/22/2010] Even The Wall Street Journal Called Angle's Zeal For Eliminating Departments, Programs "Controversial" and "Outside the Mainstream." The Wall Street Journal wrote, "Ms. Angle is the most controversial of the three potential Republican nominees and the one easiest to portray as outside the mainstream. That's because she's suggested at various times abolishing the federal tax code, privatizing Social Security for younger Americans and eliminating the Education Department." [Wall Street Journal, 6/7/2010] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE ON MORTGAGE FRAUD Angle Voted Against Protecting Home Buyers From Mortgage Fraud And "Unscrupulous Developers." In 1999, Angle voted against a bill that required mortgage brokers to maintain a minimum net worth and established a program under which the Division of Financial Institutions could register, conduct background investigations and supervise mortgage agents. In addition, the Associated Press reported Angle also opposed a bill that year that protected home buyers "from unscrupulous developers and contractors." The bill stipulated "home owners must disclose to prospective buyers any construction defect lawsuits they filed in the past - even if the problems were repaired." Angle said, "Forcing disclosure of defect lawsuits was an unfair burden on home owners." [AB 64, 4/30/99; Associated Press, 5/13/1999] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE TO BRING NUCLEAR WASTE TO NEVADA Angle: "We Should Think Of Ourselves As A Recycle Land." In 2002, the Reno Gazette Journal reported that "veteran lawmaker Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for District 26, said most of the people she has spoken with during her door-to-door campaign believe the state should no longer fight Yucca Mountain. 'We shouldn't think of ourselves as a nuclear wasteland, we should think of ourselves as a recycle land,' Angle said, adding that the state should seek compensation in the form of transportation or storage fees." [Reno Gazette-Journal, 10/2/2002] Angle: "Yucca Mountain Has Some Real Potential." In a September 2009 interview on Face to Face with Jon Ralston, Angle said, "Yucca Mountain has some real potential. I think that you know, we have some research and development that should be going on and be looking at how to reprocess that. You know, we're thinking about this in like 19th century terms, that we don't have the technology to really take care of what's coming into our state and we should really look at the potential there. Well at least take a look at it, instead of demonizing it and demogoging it, the way Harry Reid has." [Face to Face, 9/23/2009] Angle Supports Bringing Nuclear Waste Into Nevada. During a September 2009 campaign event, Angle said, "We have right up the road... I used to live closer to TTR than you guys...closer to Yucca Mountain, and we have technology that France is using to reprocess. When they ship the spent fuels in... Notice I'm covering my words very carefully. When they ship these spent fuels in, we should be looking at the technologies to recycle, to reprocess, reuse... put them into a power plant right here in the state of Nevada. We should also be looking into research and development that would explore the possibilities for these spent nuclear fuels. How can we use them the best? What can we do to get the most out of them and make them the safest? What are those things?" [Sharron Angle Campaign Event, 9/1/2009] SHARRON'S WACKY ANGLE ON MASSAGES FOR PRISONERS Angle Promoted Scientology-Based Massage and Sauna Therapy To Nevada Prisons, Funded By Tax Dollars. According to National Review, Sharron Angle wanted to bring a Scientology-based drug treatment program to Nevada that "was described in media accounts as 'sauna and massage' treatments...It was developed in part based on concepts from Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and was estimated to cost roughly $15,000 per inmate. Angle tried to organize a trip to Ensenada prison in Mexico to see the program in action; the cost of the trip was to have been covered by a Scientologist. The trip was ultimately canceled." [National Review, 5/26/2010] FactCheck.org: "It's True: Massages, Saunas For Inmates." In June 2010, the nonpartisan PactCheck.org wrote, "With the June 8 Nevada primary nearing, there was one TV ad in the Republican Senate race that caught our attention. It's so outlandish that we thought it couldn't possibly be true. Did former Nevada Assemblywoman Sharron Angle - a Republican backed by the Tea Party Express and the fiscally conservative Club for Growth -- sponsor legislation to create a drug rehab program for state prisoners that included saunas and massage therapy? And was that program developed by the Church of Scientology? That's what Republican Sue Lowden claims in her ad, "Prison Spa," that first aired May 29. We were skeptical, but found it to be largely true." [FactCheck.org, 6/2/2010]
