Posted on 08/25/2012 12:09:20 PM PDT by kreitzer
Prediction: If the GOP establishment doesn’t follow Republican Rep. Todd Akin’s example with a big, fat apology – to Akin – the whole party goes down in flames come November.
I don’t mean every Republican will lose, but there is great political peril in not sealing the hole in Republican armor that has opened in Missouri and instead permitting it to remain a Democratic pressure point. Further, “for the good of the country” (the mantra accompanying the party-wide chorus of pleas to Akin to drop out of his U.S. Senate race), Republicans must resume funding Akin’s viable campaign ASAP, after cutting it off in a mad fit of political pique. Finally, every one of them – the party standard-bearer, party bosses, congressional delegations, allied pundits – should come together for a group smack on the head, as in, “What were we thinking?”
I can’t recall anything in public life more widely craven and uncalled for than the open panic and bullying set off across the Republican Party by the first replay of Akin’s perplexingly ignorant interview comments on rape and pregnancy. The veteran conservative lawmaker, former engineer, former businessman and grandfather of eight recanted these remarks. He apologized for them.
But as the left began to bay for blood over a Republican and, by preposterous extension, Republican Party it hopes to smear as “anti-woman,” Republicans across the board, incredibly, joined in. Rather than jouncing Democrats back into some semblance of decent behavior with a firm, party-wide reality check – comparing a dumb comment about rape from one among their ranks with, say, accusations of actual rape against Democrats’ two-term hero, Bill Clinton – Republicans obligingly cut off their own noses and handed them to their political opponents.
The headline in the New York Times this week said it all: “GOP is pressing candidate to quit over rape remark.” Funny how we never, ever saw anything similar in the 1990s, when bombshells about Bill Clinton’s serial sexual harassment and assault of women were a common occurrence. Something like: “Dems pressing president to quit over rape.”
Didn’t happen. In fact, far from “pressuring” the former president into a quiet post-presidency retirement, the Democrats are spotlighting the overexposed sexual reprobate with a center-stage role at their upcoming convention. There, Clinton will officially re-nominate Barack Obama for president.
What else can we expect from the party that still lionizes Ted Kennedy, the late Massachusetts politician who notoriously left a young female campaign worker to drown in a sinking car rather than get help? Just as serial sexual improprieties perpetrated by Bill Clinton don’t count in Democrat-land as “anti-woman,” neither does Kennedy’s unconscionable behavior at Chappaquiddick. Both men not only remained in office, they remain the Democrats’ ideal.
A muddled, recanted remark about reproductive biology, however, puts a Republican one or two steps away from Hitler. He must be shunned by “decent” society, his whole career destroyed, the primary votes he won nullified, to expiate his “sin.”
Worst of all is the Republican Party’s unified acquiescence to this illogical, unjust and amoral equivalence. In fact, without the GOP’s lockstep, take-me-to-your-leader obedience to the Democrats’ rigged rules, the pitch of this controversy would have died down already. Without the Republicans’ vigorous enforcement of the left’s double standards, Akin would probably still be facing favorable odds of winning the Missouri Senate seat.
But no, which is what deeply concerns me. Indulging ginned-up, hack hysterics is not the behavior of a leader or a winner. Worse, accommodating unjust attacks on a solid citizen in the name of practicality or the “greater good” is a very dangerous precedent, as totalitarian history tells us. That’s why the GOP needs to rethink Missouri and make amends with Akin before “moving on.” Otherwise, I fear that in its vital quest to prevent Barack Obama from winning a second term, it won’t be moving anywhere.
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We are all Akin for a quick McCaskill to this.
I have been really surprised at how quickly a large number of FReepers turned on Akin, a true pro life candidate who has genuine concern for the unborn.
Akin must proclaim “I will vote to repeal ObamaCare... McCaskill WON’T”. That may be enough.
Other than Huckabee attaching himself to Akin b/c his show is failing to beat Rush and he needs Akin to pump up his show that’s getting demolished everyday.
I’ve also been very discouraged by the large number of Freepers (although a few of them appear to be trolls) who have jumped aboard the left-wing propaganda train and savagely bashed Akin.
Akin is a good man with a solid conservative record, who misspoke, mainly with the use of one unfortunate word (”legitimate rape”). And immediately every Republican in sight, including many supposed conservatives, seem to think that that is MUCH WORSE than killing every baby in sight, as Akin’s attackers advocate.
Akin is a solid conservative who supports our freedoms. Romney is a gay-activist baby killer who put through a program to provide cheap—and subsequently free—abortions at taxpayer expense. Which is worse, a small verbal stumble, or a complete lack of moral principles?
There is more to being a winning candidate than being prolife. Akin made one of the greatest campaign blunders of all time. Just because he shares that view with some single issue voters doesn’t change that.
Akin foolishly stepped in a carefully crafted trap the libtards set for him. The jaws of the trap were conservatives. They did just what the Brown Shirt Media wanted them to. Pitiful, actually. Conservatives SHOULD HAVE told them where to get off. Just another in a string of missed opportunities. The whole sordid affair did reveal whois really conservative and who is just going through the motions.
Exactly.
He has done more to damage the pro-Life side than help it.
He may be pro-Life, but that’s not enough. People who go shoot up abortion clinics are pro-Life ... doesn’t help the cause, it hurts it.
Let’s take an example: If you have a business and say you have a loyal dedicated hard working employee but one who is unreliable in what he says. You don’t send this employee to important meetings, to get a new contract/client, to represent your company ... no matter how much of a nice guy he is, you just don’t do it. It will hurt your business and your chances of success. It’s business suicide to send someone like that to top level meetings with clients etc. That’s the way it works at the top of the game in business ... and in politics.
NO.
This issue is much greater than Todd Akin and he is too obtuse to see it.
He won in a tight 3 way race with cross-over votes from the DEMOCRATS.
I live in MO and I will not accept Akin when I know it will cost us the senate seat. He should withdraw so that a more reliable candidate can run on the Republican ticket.
If he does not withdraw, I will support a write-in candidate.
An attempt at projecting blame from the person who caused the problem on to those who are the victims of it.
Akin caused this and only him leaving the race and keeping his mouth shut would have done anything to move toward solving it. It is as if he went to the most ultra feminist websites and their slander of conservatives and the pro-life movement and acted in a way to “prove” their stereotypes.
Akin was not the choice of Republicans - he was the choice of the Democrats and Claire McCaskill. His nomination would not have been possible without them and the millions they spent for him to interfere with the primary - and apparently with good reason. We are supposed to join McCaskill and the Democrats and go along with someone destroying the credibility of everything we believe in to “prove” we are conservatives?
Prediction: If the GOP establishment doesn’t follow Republican Rep. Todd Akin’s example with a big, fat apology – to Akin – the whole party goes down in flames come November.
Prediction: Diane West is someone who is a LIBERAL!!
She nails it.
Part of what bothers me is that people actually consider it to be one of the biggest campaign blunders of all time. It’s pretty clear he was distinguishing between forcible rape and statutory rape. I don’t know about the science, but forcible rape has a very low incidence of pregnancies as a result. He apologized. Apparently the GOP are not allowed to make mistakes.
Akin is clearly not too bright and seems to know little about real women who have faced crisis pregnancies.
Only the candidate can defuse situations like this. Akin had 2 days to do that and failed, miserably.
That being said if he does not step down and he is within the margin of error as we get closer to election day I wouldn’t mind if the Rs put some money back in the race.
As of today I see Akin is getting creamed by that idiot tax cheat McCaskill, but luckily Romney has a lead over Obama.
That poll is discussed over at Hot Air, I’m sorry to be too lazy to post a link.
"There were talking point memos sent from the National Republican Senatorial Committee suggesting language to urge Akin to drop out. Political consultants were ordered to stay away from Akin or lose future business with GOP committees. Operatives were recruited to set up a network of pastors to call Akin to urge him to get out. Money has changed hands to push him off the plank."
Who needs enemies with friends like that?
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