Republican officeholders, and seekers, are in full denial mode. They deny any association with Akin’s comments, and toss him overboard for good measure.
Missouri voters, however, aren’t running for office. They’re going to the polls to decide whether to given Obama an ally, or Romney an ally.
While this is way beyond a tempest in a teapot, mostly because of the piling on by GOP officeholders/seekers, Akins has two more months to address the voters in Missouri and convince them he’s not some ogre who thinks that if a woman is raped then she must have deserved it.
And since he, in fact, doesn’t believe that fiction which was too-easily created by the more rabid tribunes of the left wing, he has a chance of convincing Missouri voters that they should return to him. Now, if he really believed what the Left is portraying him as believing, that would be another matter. It will require voters to think for themselves, but the Right, at least, is showing some signs of doing just that in this election.
If Akin stays in, I’ll bet he wins it. Are Missouri GOP voters who are mad at Akin now really going to vote for his opponent? Akin shot himself in the foot, but that doesn’t mean the voters in Missouri who want Obama out are going to collectively do the same thing.