Sharron Angle Lies to Hispanic Teens, Then Lies About Lying to Hispanic Teens
LAS VEGAS – Sharron Angle was asked about her inflammatory TV ads by a member of the Hispanic Student Union at Rancho High School in Las Vegas – ads that have been referred to as “Sharron Angle’s ‘Willie Horton’” and widely panned for using incendiary, nefarious-looking photos of Latinos and scurrying across a fence and imposed in front of a map of Mexico.
In response, Angle told the Hispanic teenagers they’d misinterpreted her ads, questioned that the premise the ads were about Latinos (seriously), and said the issue in the ad was security of our northern border with Canada.
Now that she’s being called out by local and national media, her DC handlers have been rushed in to control the damage, issuing a statement suggesting Angle’s statements were completely innocuous:
“Sharron is making the point that this country is a melting pot and you cannot judge people based on stereotypes or the way they look.”
But like Angle’s statement that she’s not sure the Mexican men in her ad are Latino and that the ad is about northern border security with Canada, her campaign’s assertion is a complete and total lie. Angle’s ad is a clearly a fear-mongering, inflammatory attempt to scare Nevadans, and nearly every member of the media is calling her on it:
Ralston: The video is Angle “telling a group of Hispanic children at Rancho High School that images of Latinos in her ad that are clearly Latinos may not be. Indeed, the images in the ad are of Hispanics in Mexico, as The Washington Post and others have pointed out. And it is no mystery what race they are, as she claims. … But then she takes it far -- even for her -- by talking about how the real problem is the northern border!”
Washington Monthly: “Angle's race-baiting ads, some of the ugliest since Jesse Helms, have all the subtlety of a wrecking ball. She shows viewers images of Mexicans and a map of Mexico over on-screen text about "illegal aliens." But she's "not sure that those are Latinos"? Her point relates to Canada? After 20 years following politics closely, I've just never seen anything so pathological. Sharron Angle is either mentally disturbed or she thinks the people of Nevada are morons.”
POLITICO: “The ad in question clearly shows an image of three Hispanics who are identified in the spot as “illegal aliens.” In fact, the picture shown in the ad is the same one used by in an ad from Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). That ad has the words ‘benefits for illegals’ written over the image.”
Washington Independent: “In the ad, a picture of three Latino men appears on screen with the words ‘ILLEGAL ALIENS’ while a voice-over discusses Reid’s support for immigration reform measures. The ad has been called ‘anti-Latino’ and ‘race baiting’ by critics, but Angle said she did not see it that way. ‘I’m not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial,’ she said. ‘What it is, is a fence and there are people coming across that fence. What we know is that our northern border is where the terrorists came through.’”
Washington Post: “A couple of weeks ago, Angle released an ad with sinister overtones showing Latino ‘illegal immigrants’ sneaking through a ‘border fence.’ It even uses a stock photo Republican Senator David Vitter deployed in a similar advertisement. The ad restates a number of debunked claims about Reid's record on immigration, but the most egregious part of the ad is where she contrasts an image of ‘scary-looking’ Latino ‘migrants’ with a group of happy, white college students while saying, ‘Reid wants to give preferred college tuition rates to none other than illegal aliens.’ … She had released a similarly racially tinged ad weeks earlier. But during an appearance before a group of Hispanic children at Rancho High School in Nevada, Angle implausibly claimed she had no idea that the people in the ad were meant to be Hispanic, and claimed the ad was about the ‘northern border.’”
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