Sharron Angle gears up to challenge Harry Reid

Conservative Sharron Angle isn't ceding anything to leading Republicans who want to challenge incumbent Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

She says she has nearly as much money as Danny Tarkanian, is more clearly conservative than Sue Lowden and has more experience than both of them combined. Tarkanian has run for two offices and lost twice. Lowden served one term in the state Senate.

"I'm not here to preach to the choir, I'm here to organize an army," said Angle, a former assemblywoman from Reno.

Angle is in Las Vegas where she had a meeting with the Review-Journal editorial board Tuesday and has a campaign event scheduled today.

She said the economy is her number one issue and favors reducing taxes and regulations on business to stimulate economic activity and hiring.

"We have got to stop what we are doing now. The stimulus has failed. The bailouts have failed," she said.

In a recent survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Angle was the choice of 9 percent of Republican respondents in the Senate primary. Lowden and Tarkanian led with 23 and 21 percent, respectively.

Angle said she's raised about $215,000 so far, just $35,000 less than polling leader Tarkanian, although on Tuesday the Federal Election Commission hadn't yet posted Angle's latest finance report.

Angle served four terms in the Assembly, from 1998 to 2006. In the 2006 Republican primary for Congress, she fell short of Rep. Dean Heller by just 421 votes. In Washoe County, the most populous region of Nevada outside Clark County, Angle won 2,048 more votes than Heller.

Angle says her conservative ideology will appeal to voters distrustful of government.

During the interview at the Review-Journal, Angle said she favored deep cuts to the Department of Education, phasing out Medicare and criticized extensions of unemployment payments.

On education, Angle says it is wasteful to spend money on department-level bureaucracy. She favors money going directly to schools.

"The best education is local education, and locally controlled education," she said.

As for Medicare, she said the entitlement program popular with seniors will eventually grow too costly to maintain.

Angle wants to start health savings programs and other incentives for younger people to start financially preparing now for their senior years.

"We need to phase it out," she said. "We need to get (younger people) options because we know Medicare is one of those systems that is going broke."

On unemployment benefits, which for millions of Americans will run out by the end of the year, Angle said, "We have to deal with the problems we have been handed."

But she was also wary of the notion of continuing to extend benefits for the jobless.

"I don't think the solution to unemployment is to get more unemployment benefits," she said. "At some point people lose their desire to even work."

Lowden consultant Robert Uithoven said his candidate's experience in business is "every bit as important as political experience.

"Sue Lowden will be proud to talk about her legislative record and her record in business," he said.

Tarkanian consultant Jamie Fisfis said his candidate's lack of government experience isn't a negative.

"I know that some people are running on government experience but Danny Tarkanian is running as an outsider," he said.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.