Sharron Angle: Nevadans Are Telling Harry Reid to "Stop Doing More"
LAS VEGAS -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has hammered his Republican challenger Sharron Angle this campaign season with an onslaught of ads portraying her as an "extremist."
Conservatives gathered at the RightOnline conference today, however, said it's Reid who's the extremist, not Angle.
"Harry Reid supports a cap and trade bill that will... drive jobs out of this nation," Steve Lonegan, director of the New Jersey chapter of Americans for Prosperity, said at the conference.
"So who's the extremist?" Lonegan asked, prompting the audience to shout back Reid's name.
While Reid announced this week that the Senate would shelve any plans to pursue a cap and trade plan in energy legislation, conservatives at the conference said Democrats would surely insert the plan into any energy bill once the House and Senate versions are combined.
Lonegan named other Democratic pieces of legislation conservatives would label "extreme," such as the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for labor unions to organize but that conservatives say will put unfair pressure on workers by stripping them of a private-ballot vote.
Angle took the stage at the conference today and rattled off the state's problems, pinning them all to her opponent, whom she called, "'let's make a deal, tax and spend, politics as usual' Harry Reid."
"We have a problem with a fellow who says he's done more," Angle said. "He's done more for unemployment... he's done more for mortgage foreclosures... We in Nevada are saying, Harry Reid, stop doing more!"
Angle told the conservative audience that, contrary to what others have said, she does not support the elimination of Social Security. (Coincidentally, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today had the same message for the liberal base, also gathered in Las Vegas.)
"I have never said I wanted to eliminate it," Angel said. "I said I wanted to save social Security by paying back" funds taken from the program.
While Reid has also characterized Angle's interest in eliminating the Department of Education as extreme, she said that her position made sense because such agencies "really would be better served at the state level."
She criticized the department for fashioning "one size fits all policy that fits nobody."
Angle also praised the state of Arizona's controversial immigration law, which polls suggest most Americans support.
"We're waiting anxiously to help Arizona get their Tenth Amendement rights back," she said.
She also said "every state needs at least one sheriff like Joe Arpaio," the controversial sheriff from Maricopa County, Ariz.
Angle also called for auditing the Federal Reserve and liquidating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"Every one of us understands we have a calling," Angle said, echoing previous remarks that her candidacy was a calling from God. "Our purpose is to make sure we pass down liberty and freedom to our children and grandchildren, not deficits and debt."
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