Instead, she said a senator must foster an environment for lower regulations and taxes that would spur job growth and called government “the problem.”

“Eighty percent of our economy is with small business — they’re the engine that drives this nation, and we need to be building a climate for them, not thinking about whether the senator can create jobs,” Angle said. “We have to challenge Harry Reid. When he thinks as a senator he’s creating jobs, then why are we at 14.2 percent unemployment?”

Since winning the June primary, Angle has faced questions over whether she is moderating her staunchly conservative views to appeal to independent voters who will likely determine the winner of the November election here. But on Wednesday, Angle signaled that she doesn’t intend to retreat from the same views that have made her a favorite of the conservative tea party movement.

In some cases, though, she is embracing more politically palatable language, even if her positions haven’t changed.

In her speech to a mostly older audience, Angle said Social Security should be protected for senior citizens and that eventually people should have the option to “personalize” their retirement savings so they don’t have to worry about the government “raiding” the accounts.” She made a similar argument in statewide TV ads after her previous statements were sharply criticized by the Reid campaign.

Addressing reporters after her speech, Angle was asked about her old campaign website, which called for a Social Security system that is “transitioned out.” Her website no longer carries that language, a fact she’s emphasized in the past, including during the primary, when she said the country needs to “phase Medicare and Social Security out in favor of something privatized.”

“It’s not really a change — a change in language, perhaps, but not a change in direction,” she said Wednesday. “The change is just because Harry Reid has so distorted and misinterpreted my words that I’ve had to explain those words; the words are really the explanation of a policy I’ve had from the beginning.”

She said the policy is to “pay back” senior citizens for the money they’ve put into the system. Going forward, she would give people the option of leaving that “Social Security-type system and go[ing] to something more personalized,” she said.

Pressed if she still wants to eventually phase out Social Security, Angle stuck to her talking points that that the entitlement’s trust fund has been pillaged by “Harry Reid and his cronies for over the last 24 years.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41235.html#ixzz0x4vzuPoZ