The Real Reason "Tea Party" GOP Sharron Angle Lost to Harry Reid: Being a Crazy Fundie Racist Wingnut
The Real Reason Sharron Angle Lost Sharron Angle had all the breaks that should have allowed her to take the Senate seat in Nevada. She was running against a wildly unpopular incumbent in a state that leads the nation in unemployment. She raised and spent a record amount of money for a Senate race. She ran a race-baiting campaign in a style that almost always works for Republicans. She had the Mama Grizzly hype behind her. Despite all this, she managed to lose the race for Senate by virtue of her inability to stop saying crazy things, talking about "Second Amendment remedies," calling the unemployed "spoiled," and telling a group of Latino students that they look Asian to her. PRINT DISCUSS E-MAIL RSS RECOMMEND... SINGLE PAGE Yahoo! Buzz Facebook Digg Reddit StumbleUpon CLOSEStill, it all seems a little unfair. Angle, for all her hard-right views, was no worse and often better than some of her more successful male colleagues running in swing states, such as Pat Toomey and Marco Rubio. In the world of gaffes, she fell short of Rand Paul, who called for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act before backing off and who kept having to let go of volunteers and employees for doing things like celebrating lynching and stomping on the head of a MoveOn activist. Call it the curse of the Mama Grizzly. Candidates bestowed with this label were supposed to clean up at the polls, not just picking up the traditionally conservative male vote but also sweeping up some more left-leaning women by simply being female. In reality, Mama Grizzlies performed below expectations in many high-profile races. Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell lost, and Nikki Haley in South Carolina barely squeaked by with 51 percent of the vote in one of the most conservative states in the country. The main problem with Mama Grizzly candidates is that they present a contradiction, laying claim to feminism while denouncing most feminist ideals. Sarah Palin, with her peculiar genius, created the term Mama Grizzly to rationalize this contradiction. The Mama Grizzly could be ambitious without being feminist, could be fierce without being threatening, because her feminist means are in service of anti-feminist ends. To an extent, the metaphor worked. But the contradiction hurts Mama Grizzlies in two major ways. Advertisement First, the contradiction sits uneasily with the true believers of the Christian right. Despite being about as right wing as you can actually get in American politics, Angle faced exit polls that showed 13 percent of voters deemed her "not conservative enough." Despite having almost identical views to Sen. Jim DeMint, Haley received 12 overall percentage points fewer of the votes. Fundamentalist Christian beliefs are highly motivating to the strongly conservative in our country, and one of those beliefs is that women shouldn't work outside the home or outrank their husbands in any way. More: http://www.slate.com/id/2273539/ -- Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time. Have a great day, Tommy -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
