Nevada senate candidate Sharron Angle.
Heading into the 2010 midterms, there’s no debate on the headline issue topping the marquee for the fall elections: jump-starting the US economy. At every turn candidates are burnishing their job-creation cred and touting plans to create jobs.
And then there’s Sharron Angle, the Nevada GOP and tea party’s pick to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The Washington Post relays a telling anecdote today about Angle fielding a jobs-themed question at a friendly campaign event:
A local actress named Dee Drenta asked Angle what she would do to help people find work. But instead of seizing what seemed like an easy chance to explain her jobs plan, the candidate revealed that she didn’t have one.
“It really comes from the statehouse to incentivize that kind of stuff in our state,” Angle said. “Truly, the lieutenant governor, Brian Krolicki, you should have this conversation with him. That’s his job, to make sure that we get business into this state. My job is to create the climate so that everybody wants to come.”
The woman gave her a puzzled look. “I’m sure you’re probably planning on working with these people to do these things,” Drenta said, hopefully. “Because it’s the end result that matters, whether it’s specifically in the job description or not.”
Bzzt. Wrong answer. And this wasn’t some reporter trying to ambush Angle or skew her words; it was a regular Nevadan at a women’s business lunch in support of Angle. If Angle can’t even make use of easy set-ups like Drenta’s question, how is she going to respond to reporters? That is, if she ever gives the media a chance to talk to her: Yesterday, Angle walked out of a room full of reporters, even though she was asked to make herself available to the media, after just a three-minute speech on repealing the estate tax. A pregnant reporter even chased Angle out to the parking lot to try to get a question in. And Angle wonders why news reports about her campaign have been, well, a bit negative.
