Poll shows Akin now trails McCaskill in Missouri Senate race ...said pollster J. Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington, which conducted the poll for the Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV. "It's not a rosy picture."
And this second statement by KEVIN McDERMOTT is a flat out manipulation!
Akin said in the original television interview that rape-induced pregnancy is "really rare." By way of explaining his opposition to abortion rights even in cases of rape, he said: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down" to prevent pregnancy.
There's no mainstream medical support for that assertion, but it has been touted by the anti-abortion movement for years in opposition to rape exceptions to anti-abortion laws.
There may not be mainstream medical (read abortion providers and proponents) support, but there sure as hell is tons of medical evidence that it happens.
Even the government says this...Miscarriage
It is estimated that up to half of all fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Among those women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is about 15-20%. Most miscarriages occur during the first 7 weeks of pregnancy.
And there is this...Cortisol levels and very early pregnancy loss in humans
Our finding of an association between increased maternal cortisol and higher risk of miscarriage within the first 3 weeks of conception, together with the failure of previous research to find such an association later during gestation (23), suggests that pregnancy may be particularly sensitive to maternal stress during the placentation period.
And I could go on and on. KEVIN McDERMOTT doesn't know what he's talking about.
Claire McCaskill trails GOP candidates in Senate race, poll shows July 28, 2012
Coker predicted that McCaskill's fortunes at this point turn in large part on luck.
"They're going to need a little more than message politics. They're going to have to hope for an incident" that hurts the other side, he said. Missouri, he added, "is still winnable for the right centrist Democrat. ... She had those credentials, but with the sharply partisan issues, she has stood with the president on every big one."
Or you can cast hope aside and create "an incident" where none existed.
There are some interesting numbers in that July article...
Per Coker's poll...
For the GOP Senate primary, the poll shows Brunner, a St. Louis-area businessman, leading former Missouri state Treasurer Steelman, 33-27 percent. Akin, a congressman, was trailing with 17 percent in that race.
Snip...The poll indicates that Brunner would be McCaskill's greatest threat, beating her 52-41 percent in a hypothetical matchup. Steelman is only slightly less dangerous, beating her 49-41 percent. Even Akin, badly trailing the other two Republicans in the upcoming primary, would edge McCaskill 49-44 percent if the general election were held today, the poll found.
Snip...When only voters calling themselves independents are polled, McCaskill loses the hypothetical matchup to Brunner 57-36 percent — a devastating 21-point spread. McCaskill's losses to Steelman and Akin among those independent voters come in at 16 and 11 percent, respectively.
Looks like she "got lucky" and the "Moooooo" factor of herd mentality is helping her more than anything.
I’ve read that Pest Dispatch article several times, and nowhere in it does it say what percentage of voters actually support McCasket.
The much discussed Rasmussen poll shows McCasket at 48%, up from 44% in the previous poll. In other words, she could only pick up 4% after the media storm blew through and after the GOP-E lynch mob got done with their work.
The biggest gain there was the “prefer another candidate” category, as yet unnamed.
I suspect the Pest Dispatch deliberately danced around the real numbers because, like the Rasmussen poll, it would show McCasket’s underlying weakness, polling at less than 50% after her opponent was completely trashed by the media, the RNC, and the DNC.
It will certainly be interesting to see the next round of polls on this race in a couple of weeks as the kneejerk effect subsides.