Undercovered: Angle Says Harry Reid's Green Moves Have Stirred Opposition

In Saturday's Wall Street Journal, senior economics writer Stephen Moore talked to Nevada Republican Senate contender Sharron Angle in the "Weekend Interview." He liked her answers, like why she thinks she could upset the Senate Majority Leader, she replied: "When Harry Reid got to be majority leader, the unemployment rate was 4.4%. Now it is 14%, higher than even in Michigan....What has Harry Reid's power done for our state?"

Angle said Reid's local actions (a subject the national media cares very little about) have upset the electorate:

Regarding jobs, she points to Mr. Reid's role in killing three clean coal-fired plants in rural Ely, where she and her husband have lived since 1971. After years of opposition by Mr. Reid in league with various environmental groups, NV Energy halted development of a $5 billion plant in February 2009.

That meant the loss of 5,000 jobs, Mrs. Angle says. "That's really when we realized Harry Reid doesn't care about jobs or people losing their homes. And it's also when 'Anybody but Harry Reid' signs first began to sprout up all over the state."

Sharron Angle's first foray into activism was when her son was held back in kindergarten in 1983 and "the poor little guy was made to feel like a failure. He hated school." She wanted to home school him, but the school system and the courts said no. Her response was to open a one-room school with a Christian-based curriculum. It soon had 24 students.

"I didn't realize how many other parents were angry with the school system," she recalls. She charged $125 a month to cover the cost of supplies but taught for free. (Mrs. Angle has a degree in education from the University of Nevada, Reno.)

In 1985 she rallied hundreds of parents behind her successful effort to pass a bill through the Nevada legislature allowing parents to home school anywhere in the state. The result of her effort is that in Nevada home schooling has become a popular alternative to the public schools, and Mrs. Angle is referred to as the "home school heroine."

"I was just a mother, and the government had gotten between me and my child, and that's like getting between a mother bear and her cubs," she says. "I think that's what activates the tea party movement. What they see is the government interfering with their lives, and with the inheritance of their children. Are we going to pass down liberty or deficits? And that's really what this movement is about." The cub—her 6-year-old son—now has a masters degree and teaches high school history in Yerrington, Nevada.

Moore concluded: "To win, Sharron Angle is going to need a major money influx from the conservative groups that pushed her over the top in the primary to counter the $25 million Mr. Reid is expected to spend. What Mrs. Angle has going for her is a contagious optimism that Nevadans would never send Mr. Reid back to the Senate given the fiscal carnage in Washington."

[Image from The Wall Street Journal]