Sharron Angle Left Far-Right Third Party For Electoral Expedience, Members Say

The key to understanding Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle may be the fact that she has not always been a Republican.

For at least six years in the 1990s before she held state-level elective office, Angle was a member of the little-known Independent American Party, a right-wing party that combines elements of Ron Paul’s doctrinaire libertarianism — pro-gun, anti-tax, anti-bureaucracy, pro-states’ rights — with Christian social conservatism and fear of the “North American Union” and other forms of “global government.” The small party attracted considerable controversy in 1994 when it took out a newspaper ad titled “Consequences of Sodomy: Ruin of a Nation,” which suggested HIV could spread through the water.

Three members of the Independent American Party tell TPM that Angle, a Nye County, Nevada, school board member at the time, was an active member of the party in the 1990s. They say she only left the Independent American Party and became a Republican out of political expediency when she decided to seek a seat in the state assembly, to which she was elected in 1998.

Independent American Party

The Independent American Party is a Protestant political party in the United States that has several state affiliates. It was founded in 1998. This should not be confused with the Independent American Party of Nevada, the Nevada affiliate of the Constitution Party. As of 2006, only three of its candidates have achieved elected office.

The party traces its roots back to George Wallace’s American Independent movement of 1968. They are against the concept of the New World Order, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations. They also oppose secularism, abortion, and the welfare state.

At their 2008 Convention on September 12, 2008, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the IAP endorsed Constitution Party Presidential Candidate Chuck Baldwin for President.