Just minutes before she used a decoy to dodge the press following an event in Reno, Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle apparently told attendees at the event that the perception that she ducks the media was a false narrative pushed by Sen. Harry Reid's campaign.
The Tea Party candidate took a bit of flak on Monday for the way she exited a private appearance at a Microsoft Licensing office. Staffers for her campaign had not only told reporters that she would answer questions after her event, they apparently fabricated a scene to make it appear as if she was leaving through the front, only as she went out a side entrance.
The optics were awkward (if not frustrating for the on-site press), though Angle's campaign insisted that she left the way she did because of tight scheduling obligations. In a bit of irony, while speaking to employees at the facility Angle was apparently asked what to make of the notion that "you're not talking to the media" and she responded by questioning the premise of the question.
The exchange was taped by an attendee at the event and passed to the Huffington Post by a non-related, Democratic source. A spokesman for the Angle campaign did not immediately return request for comment or confirmation, though the voice seems clearly to be hers. According to the transcript of other parts of the appearance, moreover, Angle mentions Microsoft on several occasions.
Woman (Question): I have a more media-related question. Um, it's been a constant media theme that you're too extreme, or that you're not talking to the media and I'm curious as this has been a four-month process where you have become too extreme to talk to the media. You haven't talked to the media. How that's going to progress with six years of you in office, and how's that going to work? How do you handle that?
Angle: Absolutely untrue. First of all, your premise is untrue. It's an untrue assumption that I've been running away from the media. That is a Harry Reid and a media perception. I don't run from the media. I do a lot of press avails. In fact, I was on the radio this morning with Heidi Harris in Las Vegas.
Angle would go on to stress that she was, in fact, doing press availability, including "two shows this afternoon." If she were to answer all the requests she receives, she added, it would overwhelm her campaign.
This would be the second time that a recording of Angle at a private event was apparently done without her knowledge and used, later, against her. Earlier this month, Tea Party of Nevada candidate Scott Ashjian taped a conversation he and Angle had, in which the Nevada Republican expressed contempt for the national Republican party and urged Ashjian to drop his candidacy.