The Harry Reid-Sharron Angle website war

In the battle to hang on to his Nevada seat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took the unusual step of recreating his Republican challenger's defunct website — and rival Sharron Angle is fuming. Reid's camp say it's just featuring "extreme" positions Angle expunged from her new site after she won the Republican primary, while Angle counters that Reid's site is “breaking several laws and trying to deceive the voters” by posing as an actual Angle campaign site — and has sent him a cease-and-desist order. What are they really fighting over? (Watch an MSNBC report about Reid's tactic)

Angle wants a clean slate: It's a long way from the "lunatic fringe" to the political center, where most elections are won, says Cynthia Tucker in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, so you can't fault Angle for taking the short cut of just starting over with new positions, or for being upset that Reid won't let her. But suing him just shows "what a rookie Angle is at serious political fights" — she's just drawing more attention to her "kooky views."

"The new, improved Sharron Angle hides from the old rightwing Sharron Angle"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Reid was phishing for Angle supporter data: This isn't about Angle's views, says William Jacobson in Legal Insurrection, despite "the spin put out by the Reid campaign and its sympathizers." It's about Reid trying to trick Angle supporters into giving him their names and email addresses "under false pretenses." And she won — Reid took down the first version of the deceptive, fake website, and put up a version without the "phishing" component.

"Reid done phishing, how about a debate?"

The fight isn't over yet: Taking down the email subscription forms wasn't enough for Angle, says Greg Sargent in The Washington Post. Now she says that Reid's "advertising her Tea Partying positions" is equivalent to stealing her intellectual property, and she's apparently taking him to court to stop it. "It's a curious strategy." Time will tell if it's a good one.

"Angle: We're going to 'pursue' Harry Reid for reposting my Web site"