Sharron Angle, Not Running From Press or for President, Promotes Christian Film

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- It's the old story. Boy meet girl. Boy argues with girl over the literal truth of the book of Genesis. Boy and girl and her father -- and his mother ... no, I won't spoil the movie for you (brush up on your Einstein if you go, though).

Sharron Angle, a mother and recent Senate hopeful, told the handful of viewers that came to the South Carolina premiere of the Christian film "The Genesis Code" that it's "our alternative to Hollywood." The unsuccessful Nevada candidate acknowledged "the support that South Carolina gave me" in the race and thanked "the people of values and principle that came to my aid." Angle, a Republican, lost in her contest against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but she's plenty busy.

On Friday, she was in the Palmetto State promoting the film – a blend of physics, prayer and chaste romance -- as she has in Iowa and intends to do in New Hampshire and Nevada. Yes, those are all early presidential primary or caucus states. And yes, it is by design -- intelligent design, you might say -- to take the movie to "politically charged venues first," said Angle, where "people would be thinking about issues that confront us on the political scene."

"I have many options and I'm not discounting any of those," Angle told me before the screening. But "I'm not looking to run for president. It would take quite a movement, a drafting movement, to push me in that direction."

Waiting for the late screening of the film, Art Smith of Greenville, S.C., was startled to see Angle in the mall multiplex. When she talked to him about "a silent majority that's awakened in our country" and her "hope that we get a constitutional conservative in the White House," Smith nodded and confided his support of libertarian Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

Angle, who was heading back to Nevada to speak at a Lincoln Day dinner, admits to feeling bruised by her Senate race. She respects the office Reid holds, she said, but while "we tried to stick to the issues, unfortunately the other side was more about personal attack." That's what happens to conservative women, she said. "It's because we're pushing up against a paradigm that's been out there about women in politics," a cultural shift that happened in the 1960's when "liberal feminism" encouraged women not to take traditional roles.

"Many of us have chosen those traditional roles -- wife, mother, raising our children" and later gone into politics, said Angle. She has been married for 40 years, with two grown children and 10 grandchildren. "You can have it all if you like," she added, sounding very much like a 1960's feminist slogan.

About her encounters with the media, she said it all started last year when she was leaving one appointment in Washington, D.C., to rush to another. "They were running down the stairs at me, camera gear was flying. One reporter came across that marble floor on his stomach." She smiled, stepped across him, "we left and that was the first report that Angle is running away from the press."

"The First Amendment says that we have the right to a free press and any attempt to censor that would be a huge mistake on our part," she said. The press is free to ask questions, "and I'm free to answer the way I choose."

She came here to talk about the "The Genesis Code," despite a threat in a "comment" left on the Politico website that followed the announcement of her appearance. Politico took the offensive message down from its comments section, but the posting prompted a call to the FBI.

Angle, an evangelical Christian who believes "the Bible gives us pure religion," said values-based conservatives have complained "about what comes out of Hollywood, and this film is not a complaint, it's competition" for Hollywood. She joins a parade of other conservatives endorsing the film, including Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential presidential candidate.

"The Genesis Code" is set on a college campus at Christmas time. The two young lead characters are a star hockey player and a Christian paleontology major, and the film explores questions such as: Are faith and science compatible? Are faith-based people in America persecuted? How do you resolve family conflict over end-of-life choices?

It features unknown actors alongside Academy Award winners Ernest Borgnine and Louise Fletcher. Catherine Hicks, from TV's "7th Heaven," plays an academic adviser who warns the heroine that her belief in "absolute Biblical truth" could sink her brilliant scientific career, and former Tennessee GOP senator Fred Thompson is a Solomonic judge. The production values are sketchy and scenes tend to meander before they abruptly end.

But the Rev. Jerry Zandstra, one of the executive producers and a lead actor (he plays a minister), is excited about his film. "It's not a creation vs. evolution movie," the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based pastor told me in a phone conversation. "We're taking on the origin of the universe, the big bang theory."

After test screenings, mainly in the Midwest, it is being promoted through churches, schools and Christian stores. How long it plays in Columbia depends on its audience, which is why Angle lent her support. (A media rep said she thought the film might have played better upstate than in the capital.)

Before sitting through a second viewing, Angle told me her views on faith and science. "I have a college degree and have taken science courses," she said. "There is a compatibility there." She accepts the idea of evolution within species, but "the idea that somehow we crossed kinds, I don't think there is any evidence of that."

Though she didn't really know much about Angle, Valda McCall of Columbia heard about "The Genesis Code" through her church and a Bible study group. Leaving the screening, the 56-year-old civil engineer said, "First of all, I'm a Christian, and it supported my values and belief in God" -- and "I didn't have to hear any profanity."

Other reviews were not as kind, especially when it came to the middle third of the film, a mix of college physics lecture (complete with graphs and charts) and Sunday sermon that -- similar to the worst of both -- could have some viewers nodding off after five minutes or so. It's the kind of movie that has a college professor saying, "As a theist, my God is the God of Judeo-Christian tradition," while also inspecting his dead-sure aim at the shooting range.

Mary Tuggy of Batesburg, S.C., judged the film "slow-moving" and "drawn out," but thought it may open up people's minds. "We don't know as much as we think we do; scientists don't know as much as they think they do," said her husband, Sam Tuggy.

Sam Tuggy didn't know exactly who Sharron Angle was. He doesn't really follow politics, but there's one thing he said he's not happy about. "The Lord used to take care of us. Now we have to ask Obama to do it."


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