Politics

Harry Reid Senate challenger Sharron Angle shies away from Washington media

Alex Pappas Political Reporter
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Sharron Angle may have learned a lesson from fellow Tea Partier Rand Paul: Don’t meet the press.

The newly anointed Republican challenger to Democratic Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada on Tuesday refused to answer questions as a dozen or so reporters chased her down the hallways of the Capitol.

She defeated a host of candidates in Nevada’s GOP primary last week.

Angle, in town to meet national Republicans, apparently learned something from the GOP nominee in Kentucky, whose comments on the Civil Rights Act during national interviews caused a firestorm. Following that fiasco, Paul stuck with the local media.

Angle smiled and laughed at times as the herd of reporters inside the Capitol ran to catch up with her. She was quickly escorted to her car. One reporter later claimed Angle only responded, “yes,” when asked if she was received well by the Republican senators at the weekly policy luncheon.

But Angle hasn’t always shied away from the media. Just three months ago, she was polling in the single digits and fighting for any attention from the press.

In an interview with The Daily Caller last month, as her campaign begun to pick up steam, she spoke about how, as a conservative, “the media by and large ignores us.”

“As you know earned media is one of those things that every politically adept person wants to do,” she said then. “That’s why I’m doing this interview with you. And of course we want to get our name in print, and generally speaking the media tries to keep us on the margins and the fringe as conservatives.”

She continued: “And one of the ways to marginalize us is to not even talk about us. I found that to be more the case,” Angle said. “That is harder for us to break in to the media and to get that earned media as a conservative.”

As evidenced by the dozen bloodthirsty reporters chasing the new political celebrity in the Capitol today, that’s hardly the case anymore.

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