Nevada's undaunted 'nobody'
Sometimes provocative people become that way because they were provoked. Sharron Angle, 60, could be enjoying the 10 grandchildren she loves even more than her .44 magnum. Instead, she is the Republican nominee against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's quest for a fifth term as senator. Her campaign began, in a sense, three decades ago, when a judge annoyed her.</br></br>When her son was depressed about having to repeat kindergarten -- "He was a 6-year-old dropout" -- she decided on home schooling, which Nevada law permitted. But a judge construed the law to require that parents who home-school must live at least 50 miles from a public school.</br></br>She and many kindred spirits descended on Carson City to get the Legislature to correct this. One legislator, irritated by such grass-roots impertinence, said, "If I'd known there would be 500 people here instead of 50 and it would take five hours instead of 30 minutes, I would have thrown it [the legislation] in my drawer, and it would never have seen the light of day." Angle asked a cowboy standing next to her, "Can he do that?" The cowboy said yep. She has been politically incandescent ever since.</br></br>Even when asked where she was born, she is on message: "I was conceived in Lovelock [Nevada] but -- if you're not pro-life -- I was born in Klamath Falls [Oregon]." During her four terms in Nevada's 42-seat Assembly, many votes were "41-to-Angle." She wears as a badge of honor having been voted Nevada's worst legislator, a disparagement she says is always bestowed on a conservative because the voters are members of the press and the political class (the legislators and their staff).</br></br>Her favorite legislators? U.S. Sens. Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann. They are coming here to help her. She says she will be 73 at the end of two Senate terms, but notes that her 103-year-old aunt lives in Arizona with her two sons, both in their 80s.