Having another drink at the wake for objective reality

I've seen this short video on several websites, so it may not be new to you. Sharron Angle, Republican candidate for U.S. senator in Nevada described as a Tea Party favorite, says this to Fox News' Carl Cameron.

Angle: We needed to have the press be our friend.

Cameron: Wait a minute. Hold on a second. To be your friend? That sounds naive.

Angle: Well, no. We wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported... and when I get on a show, and I say, 'Send money to SharronAngle.com,' so that your listeners will know that if they want to support me they need to go to SharronAngle.com.

The video is a half minute. The context and facial expressions augment the story quite a bit.




Over at Talking Points Memo, several commenters hit it right on the head. Sharron has been truly clueless with the media so far, and obviously someone from the Republican Party came in and told her what the strategy was. She is just dim enough that she thought she was supposed to repeat what she was told, not unlike Sarah Palin's quote during the vice-presidential debate, "And I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you (Biden) want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also."

I left the "And" at the beginning and the "also" at the end to give it that dull clang of Palin authenticity.

Sharron Angle is not a good candidate, and the numbers are starting to show this. In June, all but one poll showed her with a lead over Harry Reid. In July, the situation reversed, and all but one poll shows Reid with a small lead.

The operative word in that last sentence is "small". A candidate this bad should be getting poleaxed, but we have such a polarized political landscape, I expect she will get at least 40% of the vote based nearly entirely on an anti-Harry Reid vote.


(Photo by Gary Reyes/ San Jose Mercury News)
A wave of fairness and balance sweeping over me for unknown reasons, I'd like to point out the race for governor here in California. The Democrats have put up Jerry Brown to run against Meg Whitman, and he has been ahead in the polls for most of the past three months except for a short time in early July.

I bring this up because Jerry Brown is an awful candidate. I don't know anyone excited about him being at the top of the ticket. He's only 72, but I thought he was as old as my dad, pushing 80 or so. This may have something to do with the old mean joke that politics is show business for ugly people.

Let's be clear. Jerry Brown is no Sharron Angle. He's a tired old war horse and she's a clueless n00b, but both of their numbers can be credited to how much the public hates their opponent, not to how much the public loves the prospect of either of them being in office.

And so it continues, a political system that does not even pretend to put forward the best candidates, hoping they can get more people to hate the opponent than the crowd that hates their candidate. No one reaches out or listens to the other side because in truth, the other side isn't listening.