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.
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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.
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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
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