These numbers have nothing to do with his principles. It comes from having your own side hammer you relentlessly for about a week and give a gazillion talking points to your enemies.
The GOP-E took not one step back to reconsider the destruction of their own candidate.
If they’d gotten behind the guy and said simply by “legit” he meant “violent as opposed to statutory”, this would have blown over quickly.
Any guess as to why the GOP-E decided to go for his throat?
They could explain it until they're blue in the face, but if the media ignores the explanation and Democrats want to exploit it, what good does it do?
Do you think that Democrats like Elizabeth Warren (who already has a radio ad quoting Akin) are going to air Akin's words, then include a comment that what he meant was "violent as opposed to statutory"? Of course, they won't. They'll play Akin and leave it at that.
All we can hope for now is that Democrats overplay their hands like they did at the Wellstone memorial.
The GOP-E consisting of Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, the vast majority of freepers, Ron Johnson, Alan West?
Akin teed up the perfect "war on women" soundbite for Democrats. He's a liability from coast to coast where Democrats have already cut ads against Republicans using the quote, including Dan Lungren in CA and Scott Brown in MA.
That's why conservatives, and the GOP-E, have gone for his throat: he's a traitor for putting ego and ambition above his principles and effectiveness.
Akin’s comment went beyond the “legitimate” gaffe into indefensible ignorance when he invoked magic biology. No one who is interested in winning the election is going to touch it. It’s a tar baby and anyone who defends it is going to get stuck with it just as sure as if he’d said it himself. It is unrealistic to expect anyone to commit political suicide on Akin’s behalf.
I vehemently disagree. Candidly, I did not focus on the "legitimate" comment because, as you say, that poor choice of word can perhaps be explained. I think that the more lasting legacy is his comment that women's bodies can somehow tell the difference between violent and statutory rape and simply "turn off" their reproductive organs.
He sounds like a nut job to a lot of people and falls right into the left's template for us. A better response would be that although violent rape is certainly tragic, murder compounds the tragedy. People could have disagreed with him, but at least he doesn't sound like a lunatic.
Akin has now managed to turn off a lot of women who can't imagine having to endure a pregnancy as a result of a rape. Way to go Todd.
That's easy to answer. Because Akin is not backing off what he said that has the really ugly connotations - the implication that if a woman's body does not 'shut down' a pregnancy, there was no rape but, instead, she was probably involved in consensual sex (i.e., she was 'asking' for it).