That was a slam dunk seat we had in the net..... wow.
Posted on 08/20/2012 10:10:15 AM PDT by Bratch
Ugh.
Over the weekend, GOP Rep. Todd Akin — the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Missouri — said some really, really stupid things. (Twitchy has comprehensive coverage. Click here and keep scrolling.)
There’s no sugar-coating or whitewashing this. It wasn’t a “gaffe.” It was ignorant, garbled nonsense. Asked about his views on abortion in the case of rape, he claimed that “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Akin’s opponent, incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill (who is currently 11 points down in the polls), moved in quickly to capitalize on the comments by claiming that Akin was blaming the victims of rape. In the video clip above, however, you’ll note at the end that Akin makes clear that the rapists should be punished, not the victims.
It’s about the only clear, sensible thing he said.
The “legitimate rape” phrase may have been a short-hand way, a la Whoopi Goldberg, of distinguishing between forcible rape and other types of rape or between real and phony claims of rape. Whatever he meant, he made a mess of it.
The cringe-worthiest part of his statement is this: “…the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
I don’t know what kind of biology classes Akin took, but rape-related pregnancies occur with significant frequency. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
And here is something the feminists who are making great hay of Akin’s remarks won’t tell you: There is most likely significant undercounting of those rape-related pregnancy figures, given what we know about Planned Parenthood’s cover up of child rape and child sexual abuse and what we know from the invaluable investigative work of Lila Grace Rose and Live Action into Planned Parenthood’s advice to young clients to hide statutory rape cases.
I understand the outrage many of my friends and fellow conservatives feel about the double standards the Right faces when it comes to media/political treatment of other politicians’ stupidity (looking at you, Bozo the VP). But the question Akin faced wasn’t some obscure, gotcha question. It was basic abortion politics 101. His statement about the remarks issued yesterday doesn’t even acknowledge the worst part of his botched answer.
GOP candidates in critical races that could swing the balance of the U.S. Senate ought to be ready for prime time. Period.
The Left, unsurprisingly, is now trying to hang Paul Ryan for Akin’s idiocy. Pro-abortion groups are already fund-raising off of it and every last celebrity on the planet is tweeting about it.
The Senate race in Missouri is still winnable. Big-spending, Obamacare cheerleader Sen. McCaskill has been in peril for months before the GOP nominee was decided.
Remember:
No matter who wins the Missouri Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate on Aug. 7, Democrat Claire McCaskill is running from behind.
McCaskill, the first-term incumbent Democratic senator, trails all three of her likely Republican challengers, according to a new Post-Dispatch/News 4 poll. She would lose to GOP frontrunner John Brunner by 11 percentage points if they were matched up today, the poll found. She would fall to Sarah Steelman or Todd Akin as well, though by smaller margins.
Further, her “unfavorable” rating is higher than her “favorable,” and some of her worst numbers are among all-important independent voters.
The poll of 625 registered Missouri voters suggests a key source of McCaskill’s problems is her support of President Barack Obama. The Democratic president — who almost won Missouri in 2008, and once considered the state a 2012 tossup — now has a 51 percent negative rating here and a 9-point deficit against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, according to the poll.
“A lot of people are going to hold her accountable for her close ties to the president,” said pollster J. Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington, which conducted the poll.
On issues unpopular with Missourians, such as the Affordable Care Act and stimulus spending, ‘she’s sort of joined at the hip with him,” said Coker.
That, paired with a Missouri electorate that is moving rightward, makes her path to re-election a narrow one, he said. “She’s swimming upstream, and the current’s getting stronger.”
The question for Republicans in Missouri is whether sticking by self-inflicted-wounded Akin is more important than securing a U.S. Senate majority.
She was running "anti-Akin" ads before the primary describing what a scary right-wing extremist Akin was, and that he was just to extreme for Missouri. I suspect she was signalling Democrat voters to cross over and vote for him, and it worked.
Akin will never step aside. He is a professional politician who is totally unqualified for any real-world occupation.
what I dont like is that Joe Biden gets a pass on all the idiotic stuff that spews forth from his mouth but this guy says one thing wrong and he is toast. If anything he should just admit he said something stupid and speak to a panel of OBGYNs so that he learns from his mistake. If there’s one thing I know for sure, most men ( other than doctors) are not very informed about women’s reproductive issues (my husband stays as far away from that subject as possible). I think if he sets out to learn more about the subject, I know I would forgive him. At least it would be seen as a step in the right direction.
Akin is the Tea Party guy.
The dems have been hoping for a Maccaca moment and it looks like the GOP has handed them one.
Too bad he isn’t running against Joe Biden. It might still be a contest.
It's more than just stupid.
And, normally I advise GOPers and other conservatives to hang tough.
Not here.
This statement is so toxic that it will damage anyone who does not judge it to be in complete opposition to what they believe. (This is not an abortion issue, it's a fundamental ignorance of biology issue, and there is no [nor should there be] any walking it back.)
Condemn this foolish and ignorant statement with all we have and IN UNISON, DEMAND WITHDRAWAL.
I don't know if there is any electoral technicality available, short of a unified write in campaign.
That was a slam dunk seat we had in the net..... wow.
Akin is not the Tea Party guy. He's the social conservative guy.
In 1984 he earned a Master of Divinity degree at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis
Akin is an outspoken opponent of abortion in all cases, including health reasons or in cases of rape or incest.
He opposes embryonic stem cell research.
He earned a 96% rating from the American Conservative Union in 2008, and 100% in 2007.
Akin is an advocate of a federal prohibition of online poker. In 2006, he co-sponsored H.R. 4411, the Goodlatte-Leach Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, and H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.
Yep. He may have cost Republicans the Senate.
At least he's not a RINO, am I right?
Let’s not blow this out of proportion, please.
That's not what people were saying week before last.
Tea Party-backed Rep. Akin wins Missouri Primary
Tea Party's Akin wins Mo. Senate primary
Missouri primary: Tea party win sets up battle for control of senate
Touting tea party backing, Akin's endorsed by Bachmann and King
That was a slam dunk seat we had in the net..... wow.
Kick this loser to the curb and bring in the Palin-endorsed candidate.
Tea Party Express backed Steelman.
Then Steelman the guy.
That's not what people were saying week before last. Touting tea party backing, Akin's endorsed by Bachmann and King
Do you even read your own links?
"Akin’s corralling of U.S. Reps. Bachmann, R-Minn., and Steve King, R-Iowa – staunch conservatives who, along with Akin, were among the caucus’ founding members in 2010 – follows last month’s dispute over the significance of the Tea Party Express’ endorsement of GOP Senate contender and former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman."
"Upset with that decision by the nation’s biggest tea party political action committee, 18 Missouri-based tea party groups issued a statement in March disavowing the endorsement..."
The local conservatives overrode the Tea Party Express' endorsement of Sarah Steelman because she wasn't conservative enough.
Steelman =girl
Posted on August 19 2012 - 11:59 PM - Posted by: Mary Beth House
In 2006, then gubernatorial candidate Sarah Palin was asked whether or not she would support abortion in instances of rape. Her answer?
“I would choose life.”
Notice the manner in which Governor Palin responded here because this is key.
She didn’t drone on. She didn’t complicate matters by spinning or bloviating. She spoke plainly and clearly that she would always err on the side of life.
Now contrast what Missouri GOP Senate candidate, Representative Todd Akin said in a TV interview airing Sunday:
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in a clip posted to YouTube by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Akin added: “But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”
After the inevitable firestorm erupted, Akin tried to walk back his foot-in-mouth moment:
In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it’s clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year. I recognize that abortion, and particularly in the case of rape, is a very emotionally charged issue. But I believe deeply in the protection of all life and I do not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action.
There are some good conservatives who are trying to push back and are defending Akin’s comments. I understand their positions and I even agree with some of their reasoning, which I will cover below; but I do not and cannot come to the same conclusions as they do.
The first bit of pushback from the right was the general response…why do we always eat our own? Why don’t we fight back and unite when our side is under attack? I agree with this basic premise, however I do not think the application is universal.
For instance, when someone is lied about or smeared, when their record is distorted and a false narrative is being pushed about them. At times like this, I believe it is essential for conservatives to rally and push back and fight because the source is a lie or a distortion.
Here, however, we have a self-inflicted wound. We can see the footage and can see for ourselves that Rep. Akin did in fact say these words. I don’t believe we should support stupid statements and bad votes just because the guy who made stupid statements or bad votes has an R next to his name. I think it is essential that we say, “No, that quote or that vote does not represent my position and I will not be tied down to it.”
The next response I came across was that what Akin said wasn’t all that bad compared to the wide variety of stupid things Democrats have said or that next to the disastrous record of McCaskill and Obama, a bad soundbyte paled in comparison.
Again, I agree with the premise. Democrats have said a lot of stupid things and McCaskill and Obama’s records are nightmares.
But the difference here of course is that McCaskill and Obama have a press that salivates to defend and cover for them and destroy any challenge to their maintaining power. The right does not have this.
Furthermore, do we really want the campaign to be about what is and is not legitimate rape? Really?
And when the left brings forth an ocean of women who got pregnant from rape who look into the cameras with either wounded or angry expressions talking about how horrified they are that the validity of their trauma was being questioned…what then?
The ads almost write themselves: “My name is Samantha and when I was 15, I was raped by my uncle and got pregnant. The experience traumatized me in ways I cannot even begin to describe…and yet Todd Akin believes that pregnancy cannot be the result of rape. So I guess I should take comfort that my rape was not considered “legitimate” by Mr. Akin, right?”
And now let us consider the overflow effect. Congressional and Senatorial candidates will be asked to go on the record as to whether or not they’ll shun Akin and his asinine comments. The GOP Presidential nominee’s campaign has already issued a statement disagreeing with Akin.
Akin will become nationally radioactive at that point and the Senate seat, and quite possibly the chance to retake the Senate, will be gone.
Oh and by the way, if you’re busy talking about what is and is not legitimate rape in this the most important election cycle of my lifetime instead of why Obama and McCaskill pose a continued and growing threat to our Constitutional Republic, you’re losing.
I know some will argue that I’m jumping the proverbial gun and that I should wait to see how this plays out. But, see, I cannot come up with a scenario where this issue gets diffused on its own over the course of the next few months. Instead, I see it going national as the ultimate in distraction campaigns, re-igniting the so-called war on women line from the left and taking attention away from our most imperative goals, which are defeating Obama and retaking the Senate while keeping the House.
Akin’s presence in the race threatens all three objectives.
As for the rush, Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini, who also recommended that a new nominee be subbed in for Akin, pointed out why we cannot wait:
Akin has until Tuesday at 5pm to drop, so there is a fair amount of urgency here. moga.mo.gov/statutes/c100-…
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) August 20, 2012
I want to make it perfectly clear for those reading this article that I speak for myself only on this. This is my opinion. But I believe it is necessary for Todd Akin to drop out of this race post-haste.
We still have a chance to right this situation and defeat Claire McCaskill. We still have a chance to retake the Senate.
Please, Mr. Akin, for the sake of this election and for the sake of our Republic.
Please step down.
UPDATE (h/t Steve Flesher): Claire McCaskill spent $2 million on Akin. Per WaPo:
No wonder Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill wanted to run against Rep. Todd Akin, even investing in his GOP primary victory two weeks ago by spending $2 million on ads that described him as “too conservative.” Missouri Republicans saw that as a plus, just as she’d hoped.
UPDATE 2 (h/t Steve Flesher): There’s a growing chorus of voices calling for Akin to pull out of the race:
“Scott Brown says Re. Akin should ‘step down’ after legitimate rape comment.”
“Growing number of conservatives call on him to drop out of race.”
“Akin’s ‘Macaca Moment’ Could Flip the Senate Race.”
“Rep. Akin’s comments were so far beyond wrong. He should step aside in #MOSEN”
He does weigh more than a duck...
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