Sharron Angle rips 'maverick' John McCain
By REID J. EPSTEIN
7/28/11
politico.com
Hours after Sen. John McCain dropped bombs on the tea party and took her name in vain on the Senate floor, former Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle on Thursday hammered the 2008 GOP presidential nominee as a conservative turncoat.
In a series of stinging late-night tweets on Wednesday and a follow-up statement Thursday, the tea party darling slammed McCain, who during a remarkable address, citing a Wall Street Journal editorial, called tea party Republicans “hobbits” and said the right-wing logic is “the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell into GOP Senate nominees.”
Angle did not mince words in her response.
It began: “@SenJohnMcCain, chose Tea-Party running mate @SarahPalinUSA , now tossesTea Party into the harbor”
She continued: “@SenJohnMcCain the Lord of the TARP is sucking up for Obama the Lord of the Rings. #RINO #tcot”
And concluded: “Never actually saw a Leopard change it spots, but I know of a “Maverick” that does! @SenJohnMcCain #FlipFlop #tcot”
Then Thursday morning, Angle released a statement slamming McCain again.
“This man campaigned for TEA Party support in his last re-election, but now throws Christine O’Donnell and I into the harbor with Sarah Palin,” she said. “As in the fable, it is the hobbits who are the heroes and save the land. This Lord of the TARP actually ought to read to the end of the story and join forces with the TEA Party, not criticize it.”
Angle’s response typifies the tea party reaction to McCain’s speech, which may have closed the door on a period — beginning with his 2008 presidential campaign and running through a 2010 Senate primary challenge from his right — in which the fifth-term senator appeared to have shed his “maverick” image. McCain on Wednesday read a Wall Street Journal editorial slamming Republicans for not making a bargain to raise the debt ceiling in fear of a national default.
Angle, who lost what many Republicans thought was a winnable 2010 race against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), was briefly a candidate earlier this year to fill now-Sen. Dean Heller’s old congressional seat. She dropped out of the race, citing a dissatisfaction with the special election process
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