This guy isn’t a strong candidate. He got 36 percent of the vote in a divided primary.
Also, we all understand that the pro abortion vote isn’t coming his way.
However in these swing states there aren’t enough die hard conservatives to simply nominate and successfully elect every candidate who has the best conservative voting resume or stirs up 35 percent of the vote in a divided primary. If that were the case, the GOP would control the Senate with 65 votes right now.
To win these seats, you need to have really good candidates. Sharp people who understand how to deal with the media. Because there are the 10 percent of the electorate in the middle who decide these things. These moderates and independents may not be pro abortion but will listen to the Akin remarks and simply conclude he’s a dope. And they either stay home or vote for Claire. Game over.
I’m tired of us running Christine O’Donnell’s or Sharon Angles or now Todd Akin’s and losing these seats that should run GOP.
Akin does need to step aside before more damage and let one of the other two take the slot for the GOP. We’ve got to have a solid 51-53 votes to dump Obamacare.
Steelman is female and has won statewide. Perfect antidote in this instance; and she was the strongest candidate we could have nominated.
If Akin loses it will take a monumental effort for the GOP to get 51 seats. They will have to sweep all the close races, including MA, NV, MT, ND, WI and hope for some big upsets in FL and/or OH. If that creep remains majority leader for 2 more years because they fell 1 seat short thanks to MO then this is a terrible scenario.
What about George Allen? Most people seem to think he's a good conservative and a good candidate, but he got attacked for one word that he misused. Is it reasonable to expect a candidate to NEVER make a gaffe? Obama, Biden, Palin and McCain all made gaffes. The answer is not to constantly be on the defensive. We have to be on the OFFENSIVE, brush off the attacks and smears quickly, and explain clearly why the benefits we will bring to the country FAR OUTWEIGH the negatives of misspeaking one word. We simply cannot prevent these gaffes from happening and we cannot replace a candidate every time they happen. If we stand on principle, which includes not tossing a candidate who we believe represents our values to the side because they make one trivial mistake (despite the liberals trying to claim it's not trivial), then that goes a long way to showing that we're the better candidate in any race. If you run a good campaign, it should be able to survive one gaffe that has nothing to do with supporting a bad policy or flip-flopping.