Hang Tough, Todd Akin. Be Too “Legit” to Quit!
Here’s the deal. If, as almost every Republican of note is asking, Rep. Todd Akin quits the race for U.S. Senate from Missouri by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 21, another Republican will be allowed to replace him on the ballot in November.
Republicans see a dead man walking, and are laying on the pressure to get poor Todd out. It’s not that they disagree with him over abortion, mind you. They just realize that his parsing of some difference between “rape” and “legitimate rape” leaves them at a disadvantage with women voters (again), and with that feeling that Akin says women’s bodies have toward rapist sperm: they want Todd out.
Republicans are dying to take control of the now Democratically-controlled Senate, the only thing that’s been standing between Americans and bat shit crazy for the past two years. They were fine with the tea party-backed Akin and men like him, who want to make all the choices for women so we don’t have to worry our empty little heads about them. But once Akin became a symbol of a small portion of what’s wrong with their party, they were anxious to shed him.
Among the Republicans lining up to urge Akin to quit: