The top Senate Republican campaign strategist promised Tuesday that reporters would have "complete access" to Sharron Angle, the GOP nominee in Nevada, "in a few weeks," but not now. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, explained Angle's silence since she won last week's primary in the Silver State by saying she needed to get "prepared" for her opponent in November, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D).
Angle has granted interviews only to conservative media outlets, while the Reid campaign has tried to define her as an out-of-the-mainstream conservative who supports abolishing popular federal programs such as Social Security.
She came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday and met with Senate Republicans and later with Cornyn individually. After leaving a nearly 90-minute meeting with the GOP caucus, Angle declined Tuesday to answer a series of questions from reporters, only saying "yes" in answer to a single question.
Cornyn told reporters, "You're going to have complete, 100 percent access to her . . . it just makes sense at some point. But I think she needs to get staffed up and prepared. The kind of scrutiny candidates undergo in a general-election race like this is far different than virtually anybody's been through before, and I just think it's a matter of due diligence and being prepared."
And Cornyn acknowledged that Angle is not yet prepared for what he considers to be a coming onslaught of attention. "I don't think anybody would be prepared for a race. where 20 or 30 million dollars is going to be spent in negative advertising," he said. "It's going to take a few weeks, I would think, but, you know, it's really up to her."
