Wednesday June 9, 2010
GOP Nominates Pro-Life Tea-Party Woman to Defeat Harry Reid
By Peter J. Smith
LAS VEGAS, Nevada, June 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-life and former state assemblywoman Sharron Angle was carried to victory yesterday, winning the Nevada GOP nomination, thanks largely to the enthusiastic support of the local tea-party movement. She will now take on U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat whose popularity has suffered enormously in the state due to his role in passing the national health care reform law.
Just two months ago, Angle was fairly unknown just two months ago when she polled in the single digits behind 2 other pro-life challengers – Nevada Republican Chairwoman Sue Lowden and small businessman Danny Tarkanian.
On Tuesday, however, Angle cleaned house, seizing 40% of the vote, followed by Lowden with 26 % for Lowden and Tarkanian with 23%.
Currently, Harry Reid, Angle’s challenger in the November election, suffers from extremely low favorability ratings at around 40%. His campaign hopes that Nevada voters will reject Angle’s “tea-party” views and vote him into office again. But the road ahead for Reid is rocky, with voter anger over the health care reform in the state still palpable. Revelations this week by Politico that start-up health-insurer nHealth will close its doors by December 31 because it cannot cope with government imposed mandates will likely add fuel to the fire.
Lowden had been endorsed by the Susan B. Anthony List and the Nevada Right to Life PAC when she was riding high in the polls. However, critics noted that Lowden does not exactly have a stellar record of pro-life accomplishment. During her time in the Nevada legislature she had pressed for a parental consent law for minors seeking abortion, but little else.
Angle, however, leapt to the fore with a critical endorsement from the Tea Party Express, which gave the pro-life conservative the media attention she needed to get her message out to Nevada GOP voters. A key pro-life, pro-family endorsement to Angle came just two weeks ago when Concerned Women for America PAC threw its support behind her.
The critical moment in Lowden’s campaign seems to be when she suggested that individuals could pay for their health care by bartering, an idea lambasted by Democrats as “chickens for check-ups.” Lowden went on not only to double, but triple-down on a statement that was becoming politically lethal, saying that some local doctors supported the idea.
With the primary over, SBA List has now enthusiastically thrown its support to Angle, and has pledged one million dollars to defeat Reid and remove him from his Senate leadership position. The group says that Reid has been falsely hanging onto a pro-life label. Reid has a 0 percent pro-life rating, as scored by National Right to Life Committee, for the 111th Congress. In fact, he helped defeat pro-life amendments that would have removed mandates for taxpayer subsidized abortion in health care plans.
“Sharron Angle is helping to usher in the year of the pro-life woman by leading the return to feminism’s pro-life roots,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser.
“Harry Reid calls himself a ‘pro-life’ Democrat then pushed for a health care bill using taxpayer dollars to subsidize abortion,” she added. “The Susan B. Anthony List is committed to ensuring that Nevada voters see the distinction between Harry Reid’s false promises and Sharron Angle’s proven pro-life commitment.”
A Mason Dixon poll of 625 likely voters found that Angle has a slight lead over Reid, 44% to 41% respectively. The poll was conducted June 1 – 3, and has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.