Thank you for your post. I was a supporter of Akin and I endorsed him in the primary. The attempts by some Tea Partiers to dismiss him as “not one of ours” or as some liberal plant the Dems and establishment wanted is disingenuous.
While McCaskill’s campaign did hedge their bets in having him as their opponent, it was a WILD stroke of luck that it worked in their favor for the general election. Their bet was PRIOR to the rape comments that his record would be “too Conservative” for Missouri. It wasn’t. He had a wide lead over McCaskill that would’ve carried to the general were it not for that “x” factor no one can take into consideration.
I personally thought he could ride out the comments, but that proved not to be the case. Given that he never recovered in the polls, he should’ve withdrawn, as any other Republican nominee would’ve defeated McCaskill. We do have to instill in our candidates that it’s not just about them. Akin should’ve taken the example of Clayton Williams in TX, and that is, aside from mentioning that they are pro-life, not to get dragged down into semantics or ill-advised or inappropriate comments and details that are out of their field of knowledge. This dragged down not just one Senate candidate, but two, the other being Mourdock in IN, who was all but assured of winning that seat.
If anything, we probably need a school for Tea Party candidates that instructs them on what to focus on and what to avoid while on the campaign trail. The newbie candidates could use the help, but in the case of Akin & Mourdock, even our more seasoned candidates need some help, too.
You both make excellent points that our candidates would be well-advised to heed. Being right on the issues must go hand-in-hand with being smart on the political campaign trail. Akin and Mourdock had excellent chances to win until they walked into the trap set by the liberal media and said utterly stupid things that were indefensible and, once spoken, unrecoverable. Our candidates have to know that they will always be walking through a minefield set by liberal journalists as well as ‘Rat candidates and plants. They have to be smart enough to anticipate this and have answers ready that can avoid those pitfalls. Those two Senate seats, plus the other one lost in Montana, loom large in view of Reid’s dirty dealing on the filibuster issue.