Missouri voters did support Romney in November 2012 - overwhelmingly in fact. The state seems to be trending Republican as even McCain eeked out a win against a big Democrat tide. Romney defeated Obama by nearly 10 points. It was Akin, despite the advantage he should have had running in a state that was going Republican so strongly, that the Missouri voters flatly rejected by 15 points. That's just how awful a statewide candidate he was.
But, only until recent highly non-conservative republican actions (gun-control, invasion-amnesty, gay-approval, abortion-approval) have folks begun to experience the rift between country club republicans and grass roots conservatives.
Nonsense. That rift has always been there. Establishment versus outsider, realists versus ideological purity, moderate versus solid conservative, etc. It's nothing new. Ronald Reagan famously spoke to this in 76' and 80'. It's where all this talk about a new party comes from prior to every election cycle and dissipates when folks realize our 2 party system isn't going to change.
Akin was a bad candidate. Period. There is a reason the Democrats spent nearly 2 million bucks trying to get him nominated. Huckabee did us an enormous amount of damage endorsing him and then giving him cause to remain in a race he had no chance to win. If you can't understand this, there is probably no helping you. Missouri voters are not going to come around the idea they should vote for someone who thinks women's bodies magically seal up to prevent pregnancy in the case of legitimate rape. Yes, all of us here on FR would have voted for Akin over Claire, but we are not a good representation of actual general election voters.