Last month, Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle (R) released an ad that portrayed opponent Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) as being the “best friend an illegal alien ever had.” This month, Angle’s latest racially-tinged ad goes after Reid and his support of undocumented students. The ad includes offensive footage of menacing men with flashlights walking along a fence that was featured in her first ad in addition to a new image featuring three scowling Latino men as the narrator proclaims, “and now Harry Reid is fighting for a program that would give preferred college tuition rates to none other than illegal aliens.” Watch it:

Reid’s campaign released a fact check and a statement on the ad saying, “despicably, Angle’s new ad ramps up her use of incendiary imagery to appeal to Nevadans’ worst fears, while using the exact same thoroughly-debunked lies from her first two ads — lies that independent analysts and fact-checkers have called out as false.” However, Angle isn’t the only Republican lawmaker to invoke negative anti-Latino stereotypes. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) used the same exact photo in one of his own attack ads:

The Wonk Room puts Angle’s allegations in context and outlines her troubling pattern of racially-tinged ads.

Throughout her campaign for U.S. Senate in Nevada, GOP candidate and tea party favorite Sharron Angle has railed against government intervention in just about everything. Angle said she wants to “personalize” Social Security, and she even went so far as to suggest the possibility of an armed insurrection against the U.S. government to protect “against a tyrannical government.” Part of Angle’s anti-government philosophy has also included health care. She wants to repeal the new health care law and recently attacked mandating coverage for autism and maternity leave. She even suggested that Medicare and VA coverage work “towards a privatized system.” But Politico notes today that Angle this week admitted that both she and her husband benefit from government subsidized health care:

Angle’s campaign acknowledged to Nevada journalist Jon Ralston Monday that both the candidate and her husband receive health care from the federal government. Spokeswoman Ciara Matthews said in a statement: “Mr. Ted Angle receives his pension through the (federal) Civil Service Retirement System. While it is not supplemented by the federal government, current civil servants pay into the program to pay the schedule of those already retired – much like how the Social Security Program works today. Mr. Angle does not qualify – nor does he receive Social Security benefits. His health insurance plan (the Federal Employee Health Program), which also covers Sharron, is a continuation of what he was receiving while he worked for the federal government.”

(HT: Political Correction)

Last week, Tea Party doyenne Sarah Palin counseled her newest protégé, Delaware GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell, to “speak through Fox News.” While O’Donnell is quickly heeding the lesson, Tea Party maven Sharron Angle is a veteran practitioner. Skittish around reporters at her own press conferences, Angle often runs to Fox News, the “safe haven” of conservative candidates in need of “softball questions or nationwide fundraising appeals.”

Angle told Fox News as much when she instructed anchor Carl Cameron on his role as a PR agent. “We needed to have the press be our friends,” she said, because “when I get on a show, and I say, ‘send money to SharronAngle.Com,’ so that your listeners” will know where to go “if they want to support me.” While Cameron laughed, audio obtained by Las Vegas Sun’s Jon Ralston of Angle at a house party this month prove “she wasn’t kidding.” According to Angle, Fox News pundits and “friendly press” — like hate radio host Rush Limbaugh — help her rake in the campaign cash:

Here’s some audio of Angle at a house party this month, bragging about how profitable FOX can be:

Guest: Sharron, how are you doing as far as the fundraising?

Sharron Angle: It’s going really well. If you’re interested in just the Internet part of that — and of course I’ve been criticized for saying that I like to be friends with the [press] — but here’s the deal: when I get a friendly press outlet — not so much the guy that’s interviewing me — it’s their audience that I’m trying to reach. So, if I can get on Rush Limbaugh, and I can say, “Harry Reid needs $25 million. I need a million people to send twenty five dollars to SharronAngle.com.” The day I was able to say that [even], he made $236,000 dollars. That’s why it’s so important. Somebody…I’m going on Bill O’Reilly the 16th. They say, “Bill O’Reilly, you better watch out for that guy, he’s not necessarily a friendly”…Doesn’t matter, his audience is friendly, and if I can get an opportunity to say that at least once on his show — when I said it on Sean Hannity’s television show we made $40,000 before we even got out of the studio in New York. It was just [great]. So that’s what I’m really reaching out to is that audience that’s had it with Harry, and you can watch that happen when I go on those shows. Go on my website, it starts coming in. We have an automatic…when you put your name in there and it doesn’t tell how much you gave, but it tells your name and where you’re from. And so you can just watch it; it just rolls like this. In fact, with Rush Limbaugh we put it all down. We couldn’t take the ticker going fast enough. And we’ve pulled in over [3,000,000] dollars just from that kind of a message going out.

The fact that Fox News permits fundraising appeals on air isn’t just a bonus for Angle, it appears to be her primary criteria. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, correspondent David Brody noted that Angle’s preference for “more conservative outlets” over “Meet the Press” or “This Week” conveys that she is “avoiding those mainstream media outlets.” To which Angle replied, “Well, in that audience, will they let me say I need $25 dollars from a million people go to SharronAngle.com send money?”

Angle’s preference for friendly outlets (and friendly audiences) has irked local news affiliates because she has “steadfastly refused to talk to reporters” in Nevada. Her refusal of “an interview request — or 10 requests, or 20″ has local news stations taking the “unprecedented step” of “publicly call[ing] on Ms. Angle to explain her positions to Nevada voters.” But if voters and the press are “tired of playing” the game “Where’s Sharron Angle,” they now know where to look.

Appearing on the local political talk show “Face to Face” in June, Nevada GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle challenged Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) to a debate, saying “What I would like to see is Harry Reid come into this studio and have a true debate, and on the issues.” Angle’s Deputy Campaign Manager agreed to a debate in August, and both campaigns signed off on an October 21st date for the debate.

However, last week, less than a half hour after host Jon Ralston announced the debate, Angle’s spokesman called Ralston to say that Angle would not be participating in the debate because it was after early voting started. Angle’s campaign then quickly put out a press release referring to a different event headlined, “Angle Campaign Agrees To 2nd Debate On September 23.” It was “an obvious attempt to deflect attention from her campaign’s disavowal of the candidate’s public challenge to Reid,” Ralston noted. The campaign eventually apologized for giving Ralston “the wrong signal,” but refused to reschedule, saying simply, “no debate.”

In a recent interview with local conservative talk radio host Alan Stock (who attempted to defend Angle by calling the “Face to Face” debate a “ploy”), Angle gave a bizarre explanation for canceling the debate that she herself had requested, saying “we wanted an informed electorate:”

STOCK: Well, Jon Ralston has suggested that he invited you to debate. You accepted, then you reneged on it, because you didn’t want to answer questions and stuff like that. How do you respond to that?

ANGLE: We’ve always been very clear that we didn’t want to debate after early voting started because we wanted an informed electorate. And we’ve held to that premise from the very beginning. That’s why the Nevada Broadcasters Association is having theirs on the 14th of October. And that’s why Harry Reid agreed to have it on the 14th is because we said we wanted an informed people voting.

STOCK: So, you haven’t backed out? … All right. The other one was a ploy to confuse you about dates and everything else.

ANGLE: Well, I think that, um, when you start trying to go around people in the campaign, you sometimes get confusing answers. … We said that that was our only…the only thing really required was that it not be held after early voting started.

While the October 21st debate would come five days after early voting started, Ralston noted that “approximately 80 percent of the electorate will not have voted” by then. Moreover, Angle refused to reschedule the debate for before early voting started. Meanwhile, the second “debate” Angle agreed to could hardly be described as such, considering that Reid won’t even be in the room and all his questions and answers will be pre-recorded. The press release announcing the “debate” also said the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce was a sponsor, but a spokeswoman said the chamber “had nothing to do with it.” The release was “much more than misleading,” Ralston concluded.

Angle has spent much of her campaign hiding from the press, and this is not first time she has canceled a public event that she herself has called for. In July, she called a press conference, only to flee three minutes into it, forcing reporters, including one who was six months pregnant, to run after her.

Angle made a similar request to debate Reid on Fox & Friends, saying to the camera, “Harry Reid, will you come on Fox and Friends and debate with me?” No word on whether Fox has tried to hold her to that.

In at least two separate radio interviews during her campaign for Nevada U.S. Senate, Republican Sharron Angle appeared to suggest the possibility of an armed insurrection against the U.S. government. Saying that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment “was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government,” Angle added, “if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies.”

While her campaign repeatedly dodged reporters’ questions pressing Angle to clarify her remarks, ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked Angle in an interview that aired on Top Line today what she meant. Angle at first tried to distance herself from her statement. “I don’t think that is exactly the way I said it,” she said. But later in the interview, Angle didn’t rule out the possibility of a violent revolution:

KARL: And of course Jefferson said the tree of liberty needs to be fed with the blood of tyrants and patriots from time to time but can you foresee us getting in a situation where there is such anger in this country that we’re in a revolutionary situation?

ANGLE: well I think at the conclusion of that discussion I said I hope not.

KARL: But do you think it’s possible?

ANGLE: Well of course anything is possible I suppose.

Watch it:

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent spoke with one of the radio hosts that Angle informed of her views on “Second Amendment remedies.” “The talk show host she spoke to tells me he doesn’t have any doubt that she was floating the possibility of armed insurrection as a valid response if Congress continues along its current course,” Sargent wrote when he first reported on Angle’s remarks in June.

Also during her interview with Karl, Angle denied that she said entitlement programs “violate the First Commandment.” “I don’t think that’s what I said,” Angle replied (it is what she said). “That was a discussion I was having with CBN. We were talking in very Christian terms, that’s what the Christian Broadcasting Network is so you speak the language of the folks you’re communicating with,” she said.

Among the many radical statements that Nevada GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle has made, two that stand out are her agreement that there are “domestic enemies” in Congress, and her seeming endorsement of armed insurrection, saying “Second Amendment remedies” may be necessary if “Congress keeps going the way it is.”

As ThinkProgress has noted, Angle has refused to distance herself from either of these claims. In an interview with a Nevada radio host last month, Angle twice refused to directly respond to her “enemies” claim, saying only that Democratic policies have “definitely hurt our country.” When confronted with the “Second Amendment remedies” statement in June, Angle refused to comment, and her spokesperson eventually blocked the reporter posing the question from asking any more questions, calling him “‘an idiot’ and another term that can’t be repeated.”

In two recent interviews, Angle yet again refused to disavow her dangerous comments. In an interview with ABC, Angle even seemed to double down on the “enemies” claim, saying lawmakers who passed legislation she does not support are “certainly not friends”:

ABC News: Do we have enemies of the country inside the walls of Congress?

ANGLE: Certainly people who pass these kinds of policies — Obamacare, cap and trade, stimulus, bailout — they’re certainly not friends to the free market system.

ABC News: So, what are they?

ANGLE: They’re not friends.

Watch it (beginning 2:16):

In an interview with CNN, when asked about the “enemies” comment, Angle wouldn’t back away from it, and even refused to say whether or not President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) are “enemies of the state.” She also refused to clarify or back down from her “Second Amendment remedies” statement, saying only that her comment was “spoken in a context”:

REPORTER: Do you feel that the President or Harry Reid are enemies of the state?

ANGLE: I don’t think anybody mentioned any names during that conversation and of course those weren’t my words. [...]

REPORTER: And what about that statement where you said a Second Amendment response may be necessary if things keep going the way they’re going. And you said we may have to take Harry Reid out. What was all that about?

ANGLE: Well, once again, as we said, those things were spoken in a context. … But those are not the issues people are really concerned about. They’re concerned about our homes, our economy, our jobs. That’s what people are concerned about. He’s wanting to take out little pieces of segments of conversations that were about general discussions. We were talking generally about the Founding Fathers and their intent with the Second Amendment.

Watch it (beginning 2:22):

Angle repeatedly complained that her comments were taken out of context, but when given a clear opportunity to correct the record, she declined. If Angle is trying to “represent mainstream America,” as she said in the CNN interview, then why does she refuse to state clearly that she doesn’t support armed insurrection?

Angle’s extremism has even alienated her own supporters, with a Las Vegas Review-Journal/8NewsNow poll showing that “2 in 3 self-identified supporters” of Angle wish “another Republican was on top of the ticket instead.” In June, Reno Mayor Bob Cashell, a Republican from Angle’s hometown, called the Senate nominee “an ultra right winger,” adding, “I can’t support her.”