Free Republic

Now Or Never Political Action Committee will spend $800,000 on television ads for Republican Todd Akin, who is campaigning against incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, The Hill reports. The group’s ad asks voters who “don’t agree with everything he says” to back Akin anyway, and it focuses on winning Senate control and defeating McCaskill. “In the Senate, Akin will vote for Romney’s policies to get Americans working again,” according to the ad. “Claire McCaskill would fight Romney every step of the way. To avoid Washington gridlock and get this country back to work, our best choice is Todd Akin.”

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Former presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that Missouri voters can send a powerful signal to "the moneyed Republican establishment" by electing congressman Todd Akin over Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.

(CNN) - Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill's 84-year-old mother, Betty Anne Ward McCaskill, died on Monday, the senator from Missouri said in a statement on Monday. "For some time, mom's health has not been good, and our family takes comfort that she is now at rest," McCaskill wrote. "People all over the state have asked about her, and their prayers and concern have been greatly appreciated."

Claire McCaskill is missing in action during the heat of the campaign. I understand from what little information is available in the media that her mother is seriously ill, and Claire is "at her bedside" and won't leave St. Louis. Strangely, Claire missed the DNC convention because her mother was ill. According to published reports I've seen. However, what coincidental timing. Todd Akin's campaign has been pushing out info about her husband's business dealings, receive $50 to $60 million in stimulus dollars. Now a week before a major election with the balance of the Senate hanging perilously over Claire's head,...

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Democratic Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill holds a slim lead of 2 percentage points over Republican challenger Todd Akin - essentially a deadlock - in a race being closely watched following Akin's controversial comments on "legitimate rape," a poll released on Saturday showed. McCaskill had been seen as one of the most vulnerable incumbent Democrats but has led Akin in most polls since he said in August that women could biologically defend themselves against pregnancy caused by "legitimate rape." Akin said later he misspoke when he made the remark, which led to widespread rebukes even from...

A new poll shows the Missouri Senate race is too close to predict a winner. The News 4, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Kansas City Star poll shows Senator Claire McCaskill with a 2 percent lead over Congressman Todd Akin, at 45 and 43 percent, respectively. With a margin of error at plus or minus four points, and eight percent still undecided, the two remain in a statistical dead heat. Click here to download and view full poll results. Watch News 4 at 10 p.m. for more analysis, and reactions from both campaigns.

A new poll from Wenzel Strategies shows Rep. Todd Akin leading incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill in the race for the Senate seat in Missouri. It’s big news that Akin is still alive and kicking despite being abandoned by the national Republican Party leadership. Akin, who refused to succumb to pressure from his own party leadership to get out of the race after poorly expressing himself in an interview on the issue of rape and abortion, has been left to his own resources and friends to raise funds. According to the just published fundraising report for the last quarter, going through...

Democratic Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill and Republican challenger Todd Akin are meeting in suburban St. Louis for their second and final scheduled debate. See link below for video. Hope this works.

Nearly two months ago, Todd Akin bought time on Missouri television to ask forgiveness from voters over regrettable remarks he made about rape. Most scoffed that electoral forgiveness would be forthcoming, and predicted doom and defeat for Republicans in a Senate race most had assumed they would win against unpopular incumbent Claire McCaskill. As soon as it became impossible for Akin to withdraw, McCaskill began bombarding Akin with ads over his statement, and few gave Akin any hope for a comeback.A new poll from Wenzel Strategies (via James Hohmann at Politico's Morning Score) might show a glimmer of that hope,...

Citizens United Political Victory Fund (CUPVF), the affiliated PAC of Citizens United, released a poll today conducted by Wenzel Strategies, showing Congressman Todd Akin in the lead against incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill in the Missouri United States Senate race. The poll was conducted via telephone survey of likely General Election voters from October 12-13, included 1,000 respondents, and has a 3.07% margin of error

A few weeks ago, I was asked to emcee a fund-raising dinner for Rep. Todd Akin, who is rather famously running for U.S. Senate in Missouri, the state in which I live. Although I did not hesitate to accept the invite, I found myself resisting the urge to promote the event, and my involvement in it. The reason was simple enough. I worried about the reaction of my moderate to liberal friends and family. After scolding myself for my indecision, I went ahead and posted the details of the fundraiser on Facebook with this explanation: ***** I am emceeing a...

Given what's come out of the mouth of Rep. Todd Akin (R) in the last couple months, casual observers might assume he no longer stands a chance anymore to oust incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) from her Missouri Senate seat. They would be wrong. A poll released by We Ask America on Oct. 2 shows McCaskill had a lead of less than a percentage point over Akin, 46 to 45.2; that's less than the margin of error, with 8.8 percent of voters undecided

The Democrats are in a full on freak out over Ohio. Harry Reid is giving his Super PAC $250,000.00 to run ads attacking Josh Mandel. ... Senator Bennet of Colorado is sending out emails to his supporters with the subject line “Buckeye for a day.” ... This isn’t just to help Bennett. This is to help Barack Obama too. The Democrats are going all in there. Consider, in contrast, Missouri, where the GOP has totally bailed on Todd Akin and the Presidential race in Missouri likewise went from a sure thing for Romney to now a borderline toss up. The...

The third definition of "patriot" in the Oxford English Dictionary is "A person actively opposing enemy forces occupying his or her country; a member of a resistance movement, a freedom fighter. Originally used of those who opposed and fought the British in the American War of Independence." The term first was used in the U.S. by Benjamin Franklin in a 1773 letter. It referred to people who stood in opposition of those pledged to the British Crown -- the Tories aka loyalists. On Oct. 7, 1780, American patriots prevailed against loyalists in the Carolinas and won their first Southern...

Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin on Thursday released a decade's worth of federal financial reports he has updated with nearly $130,000 in state pension income that he received, but failed to disclose, over that time.

At the end of the day, I’ll support the conservative who makes a lousy gynecologist over the liberal who makes a lousy senator. The deadline has passed and Todd Akin has failed to take the advice of pretty much everyone else in the conservative movement and drop out of the Missouri senate race. He’s the candidate going into the election against Claire McCaskill, a liberal Democrat who provided Obama’s winning Obamacare vote and has been there every step of the way in the progressive quest to turn this country into a crony-capitalist, welfare state nightmare. Easy call. I’ll back the...

One of the tragedies of the Obama Administration is the historic political accident that it had 60 Senate Democratic votes in 2009. The ability to break a filibuster without Republican votes empowered the left to think it could pass anything, and so it steamrolled ahead with ObamaCare, which needed every one of those 60 votes to pass. Now a couple of those Senators are expressing regrets about those votes after the fact. In our pages last week, former Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh rehearsed the looming economic damage from ObamaCare's medical-device tax. He described, as some of us predicted in 2009...

[Snip] Meanwhile, McCaskill has tried to make Missourians aware of her moderate stance. Most people wouldn’t brag about being ranked No. 50 for anything, but she has. She’s parlayed that number as proof that she’s truly a political moderate in her quest for reelection. The number comes from the National Journal’s annual lists ranking U.S. Senators from most liberal to most conservative and vice versa, based on their voting records. McCaskill has always fallen in the middle 10; this year she’s at No. 50 on the liberal list and No. 51 for conservatives. Her rankings have been consistent, too: Every...

Republicans continue to reach out to embattled Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, this time with a much needed fundraiser, despite Democrats promising re-election attacks on supporters. Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, S.C., and Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, Okla., will be honorary hosts of a Washington fundraiser next week for Akin. The event suggests donations from $2,500 to $100 a person and is scheduled for Wednesday, as reported first by Politico. Democrats and Republicans called for Akin to quit the race after he made controversial remarks last month about rape. Akin apologized but has continued his campaign to unseat...

The deadline for Todd Akin to withdraw from the Missouri Senate race has passed, and Akin remains a candidate. No surprise there; it’s been clear for quite some time that Akin is committed to fighting for this seat.And it looks like he has a chance to win it. That, at least, is the view presented pretty persuasively in two articles by Politico. The most recent Rasmussen poll had Akin 6 points behind, but that was two weeks ago. I don’t believe there have been any polls of this race since.Akin’s advantage is that the fundamentals in Missouri strongly favor...