September 18, 2010: Nevada Senate Candidate Again Calls for Supporters to ‘Take Out’ Opponent

Nevada Republican Sharron Angle, running for the US Senate against Harry Reid (D-NV), urges her supporters in Utah to “take out” Reid. In January, Angle told a conservative radio host that someone should “take him [Reid] out” by “Second Amendment remedies,” which most observers took to mean by the use of firearms (see January 2010). Angle later withdrew her statement and said she meant “take him out of office” (see June 30, 2010). She said she had “changed her rhetoric” and would not use the term again. Angle restates her comment to say she wants to “defeat” Reid in the November election: “In Nevada, we understand we have the opportunity to take out—to defeat,” she says, drawing laughter. “I really have had to find a whole new vocabulary since the primaries.… The first thing we need to do is to defeat Harry Reid. That defeat will send a shock wave through Congress. It will let them know that this train is coming. They can either get on board or get run over by it.” Angle’s speech is part of a larger conference called “Utah United” that draws some 400 conservatives from Utah and the surrounding area, many of whom are self-described “tea party” members. The conference is sponsored by, among others: the far-right extremist John Birch Society (see March 10, 1961 and December 2011), the Eagle Forum, the National Center for Constitutional Studies, and the Utah Farm Bureau. Angle is one of several hard-right GOP candidates at the conference. She has the support of the national Tea Party Express, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, and the Club for Growth, a conservative group credited with aiding the ouster of incumbent US Senator Bob Bennett (R-UT) in last spring’s GOP primary. (Last summer, Angle said that Bennett had “outlived his usefulness” to the Republican Party.) Reid campaign spokesman Jon Summers says that Angle is “trolling for support anywhere she can get it because she’s not getting it from Nevadans. While she’s seeking every out-of-state endorsement she can get, Senator Reid has the support of more than 200 Nevada Republican leaders as well as law enforcement and business leaders, just to name a few. Nevadans are rejecting Sharron Angle because of her extreme agenda to kill Social Security, privatize the Veterans Administration, and ship 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, just outside of Las Vegas.” Of Angle’s urging that someone “take out” Reid, Angle campaign spokeswoman Lee Rech says the statement “was just a slip.” Angle meant that she hoped to “retire” Reid from the Senate. [Salt Lake Tribune, 9/18/2010; Huffington Post, 9/19/2010]