Today was one of those amazing days that could be a defining point of this election. Missouri Republican Representative and Senate Candidate Todd Akin’s amazingly stupid comments have already dominated the news cycle for a day and have the strong potential to reverberate throughout the campaign.
Akin said, in a televised interview, said that “legitimate rape” rarely leads to pregnancy because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Attempting to parse rape into “legitimate” and, presumably “illegitimate” categories is, of course, inanity. And betraying a total lack of understanding of how the female body actually works is, well, beyond inanity. It’s disgraceful…and this from a man who actually authored a bill on the subject.
Let’s tote up the ways this is highly damaging to the Republican ticket:
· This puts the Missouri Senate race in play. Akin has thus far defied calls to step down from the race, which currently pits him against the highly vulnerable incumbent, Democrat Claire McCaskill. Control of the Senate is going to go down to the wire on election night, and this was one the Republicans were confident of turning….and why not, the latest polls had Akin up by +11 over McCaskill.
· Beyond that, the national dialogue is suddenly on a topic Romney is loathe to claim as a campaign issue: abortion. Romney is already facing a 15-point gender gap with no easy solution, and putting women’s rights of any kind front and center is a disaster for him. The gender gaps widens, the Democratic base gets fired up, the dialogue displaces Medicare, jobs, the economy or whatever else Romney would prefer to focus on.
· Especially because his brand new running mate, Paul Ryan, was the CO-SPONSOR, WITH AKIN, of the infamous H.R. 3 “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” which first introduced an adjective to define a class of rape, in this case, “forcible rape.” The Ryan-Akin bill sought to narrow the Federal funding exception for abortions in the event of rape to only “forcible rapes,” excluding statutory rape, and perhaps rapes involving drugs or diminished mental capacity. Horrific. (This language did not make the final version of the bill, which passed the House but went no further.)
Thus we can expect tons of questions for Romney and Ryan, especially the latter. You can find pictures of Ryan and Akin together all over the Internet, and doubtless in tons of upcoming Obama ads. (Romney and Ryan each quickly sought to distance themselves from Akin, of course.)
All on the virtual eve of the Republican Convention!
No doubt this guy said an idiotic thing.
ReplyDeleteRhey promptly threw him and the issue under the bus. And I can't see them offering him something to go away (Ambassador to Syria?)
BUT the timing is OK. The commentariat will blow through this one, on to the next by next week. I mean there is a hurricane blowing in to Tampa shortly.
Meanwhile in swing-land, the race tightens.
Good David Brooks op-ed yesterday....re Medicare, etc.
We need a guy who can figure out a way to get us out of this. Obama had his chance.
CT-R (now in CA!)
Here's my question for you: do you want this guy -- the man with those beliefs, who made that statement -- in the United States Senate, one of 100 citizens vested with the awesome responsibility of crafting the laws of our land? Would you vote for him? Is it simply about getting 51 Republicans for you...so much so that you would accept this cretin? (This is not a rhetorical question.)
ReplyDeleteGiven the desparate need to change our country, and my belief in the senate as a forum which historically has led to compromise
DeleteYes. If Obama wins 2x yes
The Senate compromises to get things done. If one party chooses to not compromise, we get gridlock. If Romney wins, he will not be able to get his "program" through because he needs 60 senators and will not come close. The Dems won't forget what Mitch McConnell did. Putting far rightwingers in the Senate because they "don't compromise" only leads to gridlock.
DeleteCT-R, I usually find myself nodding in agreement with David Brooks, but yesterday was an exception. While there's no question that we have to get Medicare under control, I take issue with Brooks' statement that we can argue about everything else once Medicare is in check. Who's in the White House and who controls Congress is going to be pretty important when we get to the "everything else" that we know is on the plate: the Affordable Health Care Act, women's reproductive rights, immigration, gun control (if anyone will ever step up to deal with that), the next Supreme Court appointee, energy, not to mention the rather volatile international climate. And by the way, Obama didn't get much of a chance with the stonewalling that went on in Congress. I do agree that we have very short attention spans and the Akin debacle will blow over (though the larger gender issues aren't going away).
ReplyDelete