Out of state Angles

Nevada conservative figure Sharron Angle has gotten involved in the race for Georgia Republican chair.

In Georgia last year, Republicans won all the statewide offices and also reelected U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson and increased majorities in the Georgia congressional delegation and the state legislature. With that as a record, incumbent GOP chair Sue Everhart is running for a third term. Naturally, tea party activists are opposing her with the candidacy of Tricia Pridemore, formerly associated with a Glenn Beck group.

Angle sent a statement of support for Pridemore, but instead of touting her own candidate’s virtues, it attacked Everhart: “I am one who believes in limited power and respect for term limits as a means to ensure that those elected to represent us do not rest on their laurels and point to past accomplishments. These attitudes can surface at all levels of leadership within our party, and now is not the time to pat ourselves on the back for the big wins in 2010. We must leverage that momentum and use it to defeat Barack Obama in 2012.”

The Atlanta Journal Constitution ran the story under the headline, “Sharron Angle’s slap at Sue Everhart in state GOP race.”

Meanwhile, Angle is being used as a bad example in Indiana, where U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar faces a Republican primary challenge from State Treasurer Richard Mourdock. According to the Fort Wayne Daily News, “The Lugar campaign is establishing a war footing. An email from David Willkie, who heads the Friends of Lugar Committee, sought to portray Mourdock as a 2012 reincarnation of tea party dreamers like Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angle of Nevada. Both lost Senate races that Republicans thought they could win going into the cycle.”

Some defenses against that line of argument have been back-handed comments on Angle, as in a letter to the editor of the Muncie Star News: “And Mourdock, who won his election as state treasurer with 62 percent of the vote, is no Sharron Angle.”