Posted on 08/25/2012 5:19:39 AM PDT by TonyInOhio
U.S. Senate challenger Todd Akin's support in Missouri has plummeted since his remarks a week ago about "legitimate rape" and pregnancy, putting him 9 points behind Sen. Claire McCaskill in a race he was previously winning, according to a new Post-Dispatch/News 4 poll.
More than half of Missouri voters now view the Republican congressman unfavorably, the poll indicates, and fewer than one in five view him favorably.
Akin's fall is especially dramatic among women. They were about evenly split between Akin and McCaskill in a similar poll at the end of July, but women now oppose him by almost 20 percentage points. Even in rural areas where Akin retains the lead, his support has dropped significantly from a month ago.
~ snip ~
"I've seen plenty of challengers nine points down come back and win, but not with this many obstacles," including loss of party support and funding nationally, 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."
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
Naaah. The only “courage” we’re going to see out of the League of Sunshine Conservatives are a few heated words exchanged at the 20% off sale on manpurses at Macy’s.
“Naaah. The only “courage” we’re going to see out of the League of Sunshine Conservatives are a few heated words exchanged at the 20% off sale on manpurses at Macy’s.”
Ok, since you and your supporters are so tied to Akin as the savior for us cowards out here, please tell me how Akin pulls this out?
He has no money, and isn’t going to get any from the national nor the state GOP. A great deal of any super PAC money has dried up.
McCaskill has 12.3 million in her campaign war chest, Akin around 2 million. He will be out spent 6-7 to 1.
who is going to organize his campaign appearances and fund raisers? A lot of that is handled by state and county GOP volunteers, they won’t be there. Try running a state wide campaign without that help.
Who will campaign with him? No other Rep politician in the state will be seen with him.
He is a totally isolated candidate whose money will soon be gone, but I doubt that will even break through his ego driven mind.
You are the second person to suggest something about DU and myself. It is insulting. I do my own work, unlike some here who simply keep cutting and pasting the same thing over and over.
It may be cute, but it tells the story. A GOP candidate ran against a crook. The GOP candidate was chosen by the voters. He believed that what happened in his state was none of our business. The party disagreed and rightfully so. In politics, it is important to know when to pick your battles. Missouri has a seat that can be taken by the Republicans. It can be taken by a true conservative and pro-life Republican, which most on FR would want. Unfortunately, the political reality is that the seat will not be taken by Todd Akin. In any election, you count on your base, but you have to make at least some appeal to independents. The independents, particularly women, are saying no to Akin. They would say yes to Brunner or Steelman.
My suggestion is that Akin make a deal with the Central Committee - agree to withdraw if he gets to name the candidate. That is a win-win. But he won’t do that because he is a selfish and arrogant *ss, who is thinking about himself rather than conservative values and the pro-life movement. He is harming both.
What the state GOP needs to do is convene their replacement committee and actually select an alternate candidate to show Mo voters what the alternative to Akin is. That would totally isolate him and expose him for the political hack that he is.
I would then run this candidate around the state as if they were the legitimate candidate to put the pressure on Akin.
I just was called for a CBS/60 minutes poll that they said would be released Tuesday night. After the usual questions about Obama/Romney/Ryan/right track/wrong track and likely voter, they then asked me if I was familiar with GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin and his remarks. Since I was, they then wanted to know if I felt that Akin’s comments were shared by all GOP elected officials, etc.
The GOP e isn’t the problem. It is the MSM who aren’t going to let go of this. They know their guy Obama is going down if we talk about the economy. So they’ll do everything to make this the Todd Akin election.
Please Todd, just drop out.
Thanks for the input. Yes, they are painting the GOP with the Akin brush across the country. It is not fair, but that is politics.
HITLER RANTS ABOUT AKIN AND THE GOP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVTRN-zkUjk
“The GOP e isn’t the problem. It is the MSM who aren’t going to let go of this. They know their guy Obama is going down if we talk about the economy. So they’ll do everything to make this the Todd Akin election.’
This is the reality of Todd Akin. He is a gift that keeps on giving TO THE DEMOCRATS.
Mason-Dixon MO poll: Romney up 50/43 over Obama
What I found particularly DUish was your association of Todd Akin with the trailer-trash bigot david duke. You want to go down that road, then be prepared to reap the whirlwind.
As for whose seat this is, I would argue that it’s the people of Missouri’s. They will chose who they want to represent them. Elections do have consequences. Even primaries. Especially primaries. I’ve said on other threads and will say on this one: if Mr. Akin wishes to step aside for another CONSERVATIVE candidate then I would support it. I think he has nothing to lose by staying in and I don’t think that conservatives gain anything by pushing him out. Yeah sure, we might lose a seat. But I think we do ourselves far more harm by showing the 500 other conservatives that are thinking about running for office that if they make a misstep they’ll be thrown to the wolves. And we wonder why we can’t get good candidates to run?
These are the kind of scenarios that test our mettle and who we are. Unfortunately the picture emerging as a result of this sordid little affair is less than flattering.
A politely asked question deserves a politely crafted answer.
Short answer is that I don’t know if there is a road to victory here. But focusing on that misses the bigger picture: whether conservatives win is not measured in one election cycle. The bigger message here is the one that was sent to the hundreds of conservatives who were thinking that hey, I might want to run for office. What was the message that was sent to them? Make one slip up and the entire gop apparatus is coming down on you like a pile of bricks. Dumb, dumb, and triply dumb.
Ego driven personality? If so, then the approach was dumb to the 4th power.
OMG!!! I reaped your whirlwind.
The point was that we pick our battles. I was on talk radio fighting for George Allen. That was a battle worth fighting. David Duke had voter support in his state. He was obviously not worth supporting. He is scum.
I have proposed a solution several times. Todd Akin make a deal with the Central Committee to step aside if he gets to choose his replacement. That replacement would certainly be pro-life and conservative and could beat McCasKILL. Win-win-win. The third win is the defeat of the pro-abort.
Akin had a chance to explain his statement on Hannity and blew it. Good grief; his advisers are his son and wife. What is worse than the offending statement is the totally disingenuous statement that “it’s not about me.” Certainly it is about him. He fought hard to get a shot at the U.S. Senate, and that dream is going up in smoke. He actually thinks we are stupid enough to believe that it is not about him. That is hubris.
We can agree on this. If Akin steps aside for another conservative, pro-life candidate, he will get our support. That support would be massive because we would be sticking it to the mainstream media that believed they could keep McCasKILL in power.
As I read a story like this, I’m remeinded of Kevin Bacon’s scene in the movie “Animal House”.
He’s an ROTC cadet acting as a parade marshall. He’s standing in the middle of street as chaos breaks out repeating “All Is Well. Stay Calm”.
That is what the Akin supporters on FR are saying too. I can picture all of ‘em (Uncle Chip, JediJones, etc) all repeating the same mantra.
But all isn’t well. Nor is it gonna be.
And no amount of blaming it on Mitt Romney or the “GOP establishment” is gonna make it right either.
Yup, reaped you did. Note my site handle. It refers to the fact that I was a dem when I joined FR, although I’m no longer one.
Point noted with regards to choosing your battles and it’s interesting that you bring up George Allen. I’m also a Virginian and have been into VA politics for quite a spell. So lemme give you some political analysis about the ‘06 race you won’t get elsewhere.
George is a middle of the road conservative. Not a bad guy. Not a great conservative but an OK one. I did vote against him in the primary this year because there were more conservative candidates available. Anyway, George is a nice enough fellow...but he isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
George’s biggest gaffe in ‘06 wasn’t the macaca quote. His biggest mistake was dissing Jim Webb well before that. Jim Webb’s underlying reason for running was that he had some real concerns about the Iraq war. His son was serving in the Corps at the time. And remember Jim Webb is a highly decorated veteran, an ex-Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, and while I disagree with his politics the man is a Patriot with a capital “P.” When someone of his stature let’s you know that he has some concerns about your support of GW Bush’s policies in Iraq, you know what you do? You set aside the time on your schedule and you listen to what he has to say real hard. As an elected representative that’s part of the job.
George apparently didn’t listen. And bought himself a challenge as a result. Add to that the fact that he ran a fairly lousy campaign plus the macaca quote and I’m frankly surprised that George did as well as he did.
Getting back to the point, though, is picking your battles. And I guess this is the difference between how dems and pubs see things. As a dem, you defend your candidate. Period. No question. They say say something stupid, you defend it. It’s about loyalty, but it’s also about knowing that YOU will be given the benefit of the doubt if the time comes. And the funny thing is that once the candidate does become indefensible, have you noticed how fast dems go out the door? It’s an efficient system.
But let’s contrast with how the gop dealt with this. Instead of defending Todd Akin, they were more shrill than the dems in criticizing him. And the call for him to exit the race wasn’t a conversation held privately where some palatable options for the future were discussed in exchange for a graceful exit. No, the gop chose to disrespect Todd Akin both publicly and loudly. They backed him into a corner where the only options were to end his political career or push back. And now the gop is all taken aback and surprised when they got told to stick it?
And there really wasn’t any reason to do any of this from a strategic perspective. The gaffe was defendible with some humor and work. But no, the gop showed it’s hand here when it summarily decided to try to toss the socon under the bus. They didn’t hold back. They told us what they really think of socons.
We see it a little differently. Because the RATS and their press buddies created the WAR on WOMEN, I don’t think the GOP had any choice but to come out quickly and publicly. Perhaps another type of gaffe could have been handled differently, but not that one. It really was the worst thing Akin could have done. I saw the shrillness from the RATS immediately.
Thanks for the insights on Allen.
Yes, but was it legitimate reap? ;-)
Funny.
Doug, I am of the opinion that it wasn’t a gaffe. Maybe the use of the word “legitimate” was poorly chosen - but I think that Akin really believes that a woman is biologically capable of resisting a rape-induced pregancy.
That line of thinking is still active in the pro-life community. That line of thinking is still active in the faith-based institutions that Akin has been part of.
If there was scientific basis for Akin’s statement, he should be able to back it up. But he didn’t. It was almost like he looked up at the furor that emerged after his comment and thought “Wow, you mean people don’t agree with me on this?”
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