Slate: Heck won’t go all-in for Angle

Slate magazine political writer John Dickerson was in Nevada recently to check in on the Congressional District Three race between incumbent Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., and Republican challenger Joe Heck.

Dickerson's article asks whether it is the most important House race in the country and focuses largely on the fact the outcome of the U.S. Senate race between Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Republican Sharron Angle may be decided in the Third Congressional District.

To emphasize the fact Heck will need votes from independents and Democrats to beat Titus, Dickerson reports on the Republican's answer to a question about whether he will support Angle, a strident conservative who critics label as "extreme", when they're being kind.

Heck didn't take the bait, telling the questioner, who was attending an event Dickerson was covering, "I'm waiting to see all of the evidence before I make my choice."

Heck's reticence to get totally behind Angle isn't new. In August a reporter asked him whether he voted for Angle in the crowded Republican primary: "What I do inside that curtain is inside that curtain. I never say who I vote for and who I would vote for. That's why we have secret ballots in this nation."

And when asked whether he would be campaigning with Angle, Heck replied: "We haven't discussed doing any joint campaign events."

Back in July, however, at the state Republican convention Heck did make a plug for Angle in a speech about party unity.

"The primary is over," Heck told the Republican audience. "We now have to rally around the slate of candidates up and down the ticket, Sharron Angle all the way down to the last Assembly seat, to make sure we bring a new direction to Washington, D.C., and to Carson City."