Someone is out to get Sharron Angle, and you know who

Someone is out to get Sharron Angle. Her friends and supporters are sure of it.

Can you guess who it is?

For one, the liberal media. Angle is a staunch conservative, and following her victory in the Republican primary she has minimized her time with the mainstream press in favor of Christian and right-leaning outlets. Surely petty liberal reporters and columnists have put her at the top of their hit lists. (Personally, I recently misplaced my hit list. But I'm sure it's around here somewhere.)

Then there's the even more obvious answer: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Dingy Harry. A part of the three-headed Democratic viper called Obama-Reid-Pelosi. Ruthless Reid will stop at nothing. His career's at stake, and his campaign has millions to spend to make Angle look bad.

Yes, someone is out to get Sharron Angle.

Question is, who?

I was again reminded of the identity of the culprits who might be gunning for Angle after learning she recently met in secret with grandstanding "Tea Party" candidate Scott Ashjian. With the race very close, conventional wisdom says Ashjian might steal votes from Angle.

But that grossly inflates Ashjian's importance. He's no Ross Perot. He's a gadfly with no game. To call him a political footnote does a disservice to political footnotes.

Yet, Angle agreed to meet with Ashjian (against the good advice of her attorney, Cleta Mitchell) after speaking with campaign mentalist Richard Ziser.

To no one's surprise except perhaps Angle's, Ashjian recorded the candid conversation and leaked it. Darned if the reporters didn't run with the embarrassing chatter. That's the liberal media for you.

But tell me, can it be that staunch Christian conservative Ziser is actually out to get Sharron Angle?

Last week, Reid's campaign dug up some comments Angle made about being forced by Nevada law to pay for insurance mandates that include prenatal care and treatment for autism. After all, she said, she wasn't going to have any more babies. And she intimated "autism" was a medical malady that for some reason deserved quote marks around it.

She told a 2009 Tea Party rally, "Take off the mandates for coverage in the state of Nevada and all over the United States. You're paying for things you don't even need.

"They just passed the latest one, is everything that they want to throw at us now is covered under 'autism.' "

Although Reid and the liberal media picked up on Angle's extremely insensitive pronouncement, one sure to offend those touched by "autism," those Tea Party members must have set her up. I always suspected they were out to ruin her when they endorsed her.

Same goes for Nevada's supposedly true-blue conservative radio pundits, Alan Stock, Heidi Harris, Lars Larsen and Bill Manders, among many. They say they're in her corner. They regularly invite her on their popular radio shows and feed her questions like so much angel food cake.

But it was on their shows that Angle said she wouldn't have fought to save the CityCenter project and would advise a pregnant 13-year-old rape victim to buck up and look on the bright side instead of seeking an abortion.

Although it's true those statements were collected by her critics like gold coins on the street, surely those radio pundits are at fault. They were just waiting for her to slip up and utter something jaw-dropping. Yes, that's it.

Because it can't possibly be that Angle isn't ready for prime time. It can't be that, despite a foundering economy and Reid's pungent lack of popularity, she is incapable of resisting the urge to express her hard-core views even with Election Day less than one month away.

No, it must be that someone is out to get Sharron Angle.

Can you guess who it is?

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.