Exactly.
They are trying to do a Todd Akin or a George Allen moment...get a sound bite like “legtreasure rape” or “macaca” and beat it into the ground.
Wise up, Republicans.
Post 37 should have said “legitimate rape”.
I'm not disagreeing as to media motive, but it's a legitimate question.
We now know that Jeb Bush is willing to attend a ceremony celebrating something most conservative Republicans consider a horrible sin. He defends that position by saying it's comparable to remarriage of a divorced person.
Not all sins are equal. Bush may honestly not understand the doctrinal issues involved; after all, he's a convert to Roman Catholicism and hasn't placed church doctrine front-and-center in his prior campaigns. If he were running for the state legislature, I might give him a pass. But coming from a top-tier presidential candidate who grew up as the son of a president, this answer shows Bush wasn't prepared.
The parallel to Akin is actually a good one. There was NO excuse for Akin not being prepared to answer a question on abortion which every conservative Republican should expect to get from the media. With the Supreme Court decision coming soon on gay marriage, every conservative Republican needs to be prepared to answer gay marriage questions.
We just had our Todd Akin moment, and it's Jeb Bush who made the Akin-like statement.
Fortunately it's early enough in the campaign that we still have time to find out what Jeb Bush really believes. Bush supporters also have time to find a different candidate if he doesn't fix this fast.
I liked Santorum's answer. I can live with Cruz's answer at this stage in the campaign, but he'll keep getting asked until he gives a clear answer. Walker's answer needs to be understood in the context that HIS OWN LOCAL CHURCH went pro-gay, and he left it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he did things years ago in a "moderate" American Baptist Churches USA congregation that he's since decided are wrong, but I need details on what he believes now, not only what he did in the past.
And by the way, I live in Missouri. I voted for Akin in the primary and the general election. I also saw the Akin mess firsthand and the huge damage it created not just for him but for numerous other Republican candidates. I still believe his campaign could have been saved, but he has only himself to blame for what happened because he failed to prepare for an obvious question.
Let's be glad this is happening in April of 2015, not the late spring or early summer of 2016 when the candidate has been selected and we have to figure out how to play a game when the candidate made a major fumble.