Ras has Akin down by 10 in a poll conducted yesterday. PP had them in a dead heat in a poll conducted on Monday.
Akin can still drop out if he pays up for the cost of printing new ballots, but I think he’ll stick. His has a decent shot at a Senate seat, and whether or not he quits, he’s a shoo-in for a wingnut welfare gig at a pro-life organization. And he’s eligible for his House pension. Nobody’s going to be eating Alpo at the Akin house anytime soon. So why not roll the dice?
Balconesfault
If Akin could think critically, he wouldn’t believe the crap he does.
Which means I’m wholly unqualified to have an opinion on what he might do. I can’t do that level of crazy.
Corner Stone
If he drops then he’s even more of a fool than he appears.
I have serious doubts on Sen McAskill’s ability to extend this bonanza close enough to the election. IMO, this will be washed out of voters minds very quickly.
jwb
Let’s get back to talking about Mitt’s finances.
askew
Rasmussen is playing his usual games. This poll is released to try to push Akin from the race and should be ignored.
Triassic Sands
Memo to all Republican Candidates:
To ensure your (re)election in November, we strongly recommend that you discuss “legitimate rape” at your soonest possible opportunity and in as public a forum as can be arranged.
We’re the party of ideas and ideals and our pro-life stance must be unbending. Let the voters know where you stand.
Sincerely,
The RNC
taylormattd
Holy crap, that is a 13 point swing since Rass last polled the race, about a month ago:
July 30, 2012: 47% – Akin; 44% – McCaskill
red dog
Poor Mitch McConnell, the turkey neck is shaking.
jwb
@Corner Stone: Blue dog or not, McCaskill is a remarkably untalented politician. Her only hope is that Akin turns out to be even worse.
Linda Featheringill
I am hesitant to believe that Rasmussen would skew the poll in favor of the Democrats but even if they had a reason to do so, and if you cut that lead in half, it’s still good news.
[You’ll note that I never said that R. would not mess with the poll numbers.]
Villago Delenda Est
@Balconesfault:
DING DING DING DING DING
Thread is over at the start.
I really do not know if the flash poll results will hold up for the next two months, but I’d say that Akin managed to make McCaskill look a lot better to a number of people.
If she wins in November, Akin will be blamed personally for it, and not the GOP as a whole, so there’s no need for them to changed their fucked up pre-civilization in its entirety platform.
Corner Stone
@red dog:
I would’ve went with “wobbling” or maybe even “warbling”, but to each his own.
jwb
@askew: Probably, and I don’t trust any number he releases unless it is within 48 hours of the election, though it’s interesting to speculate whether or not he needed to put his thumb on scale for this one.
sherparick
I would say all the incentives are for him to stay in the race. He may still win (as McCaskill has lots of baggage and is not popular and the Democratic Party in Missouri, like so much of Red State America, appears to dissolving, much like the 19th Century Republican Party in the South in the 1880s and 90s post-Reconstruction). And if he loses, their are all the endless speaker fees and Fox Nes gigs that bekon as “martyr for the cause” celebrity.
gnomedad
@Villago Delenda Est:
Will “not conservative enough” fly this time?
Shawn in ShowMe
@jwb:
Claire may not be a stalwart campaigner but ratfucking the Republican primary was great politics.
Triassic Sands
@askew:
I haven’t had any respect for Rasmussen polls, because their results seem to be so obviously skewed to favor the Right. But your very interesting comment shows how polls could be used as active tools in campaigns. I don’t know if Rasmussen is actually as corrupt as your comment implies, but it will be interesting to see the Missouri results from other, more reliable, pollsters in the next few days.
Violet
@askew:
Agreed. They’re trying to push Akin out of the race. I don’t see why he should go.
David in NY
@askew: @jwb:
Thought occurred to me, too. OTOH, that was what the right was saying about the PPP poll showing him one up.
Amir Khalid
Since Akin was only saying out loud what Republicans really think, I’m a little surprised that there has been a backlash at all. So, if I understand all this correctly, his party is mad at him because he drew attention to things they want to on the QT?
NancyDarling
If I were Todd Akin, I would be watching my back—mostly figuratively, but maybe even a little bit literally. Karl Rove is not amused with the light that the Akin affair is shining on the rest of the repub party. Akin is athwart Rove’s ambitions for a permanent republican majority. If anything happens to Akin (scandal, whatever), my suspicious mind will kick into overdrive.
As if you didn’t know, DemocracyNow had Craig Unger on the other day detailing what a truly evil Machiavelli Rove is.
democracynow.org/2012/8/22/boss_rove_how_karl_rove_went
jwb
@Shawn in ShowMe: So her campaign has a decent strategist. Let’s hope that strategist can pull her across the line.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est:
So it’s the job of Democrats to connect the dots between Akin, Ryan, the GOP platform, every other pol who has supported such things and all the Republicans and make the Republican Party synonymous with this set of beliefs and policies. It’s not that hard to do because it’s true.
Cassidy
I’m still confsed how he blamed the liberal media for demanding he drop out. Didn’t he head of the party say he should drop out?
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
Republicans ALWAYS talk in code. They can’t say what they really think in plain, unambiguous English as Akin did. That gets them into trouble every single time.
“That one” instead of ni*CLANG*, for example. “You people”.
You can’t be bold and blunt, it ruins the effect. Lee Atwater (insincere sack of shit, I’ll never accept his “death bed conversion”, he’s unrelieved utter scum) said it best, in the evolution of the use of “ni*CLANG*”. Find a way to say the same thing but obliquely.
Akin violated that rule.
Yutsano
@gnomedad: Conservsatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. They’ll find a decent enough excuse for why later.
Cassidy
@Villago Delenda Est: First rule of Fight Club…
Violet
@Cassidy:
You’re confused how? He just says it. It’s so familiar it just rolls off his tongue and everyone nods along. Like the opening bars of “Stairway to Heaven”, when it starts, everyone knows what it is and what’s happening. It just is.
Sullivan Hyde
People are still finding out about this. My (low-information blue collar Hillary ’08 stalwart) mother in law just heard about it this morning. She was IRATE in a way I’ve never, ever seen her get worked up about politics before. We’re not in MO but she’s the exact kind of voter that Republicans need.
rita forsyth
@Corner Stone: surely you forgot your meds? maybe women will consider this a “distraction” as Paulie blue eyes said yesterday lol
rita forsyth
@Corner Stone: surely you forgot your meds? maybe women will consider this a “distraction” as Paulie blue eyes said yesterday lol
gogol's wife
@Sullivan Hyde:
My trainer said today that her 85-year-old mother was steamed up about it. We’re not in Missouri (thank God, got out of there years ago), but nevertheless, this has hit a nerve with women of all ages, and may help with the presidential race.
Villago Delenda Est
Agreed with others above that Rasmussen is pushing the GOP establishment line on Akin.
Akin, as Cassidy so ably points out, broke the rule of Fight Club.
He and he alone will bear the consequences. Nothing else to see here, folks!
rageahol
crazification factor example in 5…4…3…
Zifnab
@askew: @rita forsyth: That’s kind of what I figured. He made a gaff. He didn’t make a 10-point gaff.
But if Ras wants to breath new life into the McCaskill campaign with a poll like this, I’m not going to stop them.
Hal
Wasn’t the PPP poll an automated poll conducted right after the story broke? It might not have been able to capture the full effect of Akin’s remarks so I’m willing to give the Rasmussen poll a little bit of leeway. Also, if Akin drops out, who takes his place? I would assume an equally horrible candidate is waiting in the wings.
Villago Delenda Est
@Zifnab:
The Kinsley rule of gaffes is that they are unplanned ejaculations of the truth.
Akin said what the GOP believes in non code, in plain English.
He must pay the price for breaking the most important rule.
Triassic Sands
@Violet:
Because he’s discussing the party’s core beliefs in public, something a Republican simply must not do.
Marc
Am I the only one who thinks Ras and PPP were both releasing polls to nudge Akin towards their desired outcome?
Litlebritdifrnt
OT – Gawker dumps 950 Bain internal docs
gawker.com/5936394/
Violet
@Triassic Sands: Oh, I see why Republicans want him to go. I don’t see why, from Akin’s perspective, he should go. What’s the upside for him? They’d need to promise him lots of good stuff.
cckids
Tho I am not fond of McCaskill, we do need her in the Senate. My main fear with this whole mess is that it could energize some R’s in Missouri; as in “don’t let those outsiders tell us who to vote for”.
Could be a Scott Walker-type situation, where large enough numbers of people just dig in because they will not be told what to do or think.
Reminds me of both toddlers and teenagers.
ETA: And isn’t the deadline to drop past? Why would Akin drop now & pay to have the ballots reprinted? As others have said, What’s in it for him? Nothing that can compare to the world that opens up to him as a US Senator. And, sadly, he still has a decent chance to win.
Sullivan Hyde
@Zifnab: I wouldn’t put too much stock in any particular set of numbers right now. Low infos are just catching up, people who have heard are still in “wtf for real?” mode, and things are going to be in flux for a week or two before things settle down again.
japa21
What this whole thing can do is be a big boost to Obama in MO. I think the last poll out had him up 3 over Romney. This can help that even more. This can energize the Dems in MO to really make a push in November, not only to vote for Obama but bring McCaskill across the finish line as well. And the effect this will have in House races across the country is an unknown quantity at this time. However, Duckworth in IL is already working to tie Akin and Walsh together. IL, even in Walsh’s district is pretty pro-choice.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
If Akin keeps this shit up, he’s going to have some sort of “accident” that will force him out of the race.
Rove will see to it, the sneaky little Greg Mamalarde/Doug Niedermeyer shit.
Look for something along the lines of Larry Craig to pop up.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Corner Stone:
Agreed. She’s proven herself far too timid to give me a warm fuzzy that she’ll take this and effectively run with it.
But, *she* might not have to. This could be the gift that keeps on giving at the national level, thus, she benefits without having to do any of the heavy lifting herself.
And this won’t change Republican female voters’s minds one iota. The diehards all live in the same, forced birth, ghetto and rapes, legitimate or otherwise, only happen to “others” and thus, are inconsequential.
Sad_Dem
On top of everything else, Akin is a great example for the Boomer haters. He’s 65 and could just retire. But noooo. He has to hang on to the power and money until he is kicked out.
lamh35
any thoughts of the Bain File documents gawker just posted?
gawker.com/bain-files/
jwb
@Marc: PPP, I’m not sure. They don’t have a history of putting the thumb on the scale, though they do seem to have a Democratic bias. (That is, the bias is reliably slightly Democratic but the bias does not shift as the election approaches.) But they had a serious of outlier polls that day, with a significant uptick in GOP voters in their samples. They say they don’t correct for party ID, but I see nothing that had happened recently that would account for a change in their sample to that extent. It could be random error of course, or like other pollsters they could be joining the game of keeping the horse race alive. In any case, with respect to PPP’s poll, there were enough methodological issues that it wasn’t exactly clear what they had actually measured compared to the earlier poll.
Rasmussen, on the other hand, has a history of putting its thumb on the scale as needed, especially in these horse race polls that are taken months out. His polls get more reliable as the election approaches, but I would say they are only reliable days before the election.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@jwb:
As big a critic as I am of my dear, moderate Republican Senator, she’s not untalented. She’s learned from past campaign mistakes, it’s one reason why she was successful in 06 statewide. Plus, like it or not, she’s always intended to be a milquetoaste-I-feel-strongly-both-ways-about-that Senator. She’s very good at that. Whether it’s a winning stragety here in Misery remains to be seen.
Again, it’s not that she’s untalented, it’s just that she forgets, constantly, who put her into the Senate in the first place.
Corner Stone
@rita forsyth: I am of the opinion that if he stays in the race he will win the Senate seat from MO.
lonesomerobot
@askew: I would wonder, if that was their goal, why they wouldn’t have come out with a poll like this on Monday, since it would have been much easier for him to drop out before Tuesday.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est: I don’t disagree with you about Rove stepping in with some dirty tricks. I just don’t think Akin is bright enough to see this sort of thing coming.
I watched his interview on the Today Show and I ended up sort of cheering for him, and I disagree with him completely. I can see how, if someone agreed with him, they’d be behind him 100%.
He’s a True Believer and I can see why he’d want to stay. He doesn’t think he’s said anything everyone in the Republican party doesn’t believe, and indeed he’s just said out loud what’s actually in the platform. His forced birther supporters don’t want him to leave, so now he’s sort of their Joan of Arc or something. He’s the holy fighter, out there to stand up for his–and their–beliefs.
If the Republicans ratfuck him, they could easily see the forced birth/evangelical types bolt. Do they want to risk that?
jwb
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I don’t know, that sounds like lack of talent to me. As I’ve said, I have nothing against the blue dog stance; I presume that’s what she needs to be. But polls show that nobody particularly likes her, even the independents, and a lot of people, and not just Republicans, despise her. She also comes off to me as not middle-of-the-road but as completely unsure of what she wants.
Litlebritdifrnt
Two of the top trends on Twitter
The Bain Files
Inside Mitt Romney’s tax dodging Cayman schemes
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
I’m a little surprised by it too. My guess is that they’re increasingly aware that the campaign is going badly and are really freaking out that this might be the nail in the coffin.
Felinious Wench
Y’all remember when the Komen Kerfuffle hit, and the general consensus was “why on Earth would anyone piss off women? They never forget ANYTHING.”
The Republicans just keep digging and digging with women, they can’t win without us, and we never forget. They’re going to lose us for eternity at this rate.
jwb
@Litlebritdifrnt: Nothing would make me happier than that we start talking about the Mittwit’s finances again.
Felinious Wench
@gogol’s wife:
Even the staunch Republican women around me are furious. One told me “I get what you’ve been saying now.”
? Martin
Yeah, I think based on his embrace of the abortion position, he’s going to make this a race of principle. We’ll get to see what the voters think about the GOP platform when they speak honestly about it.
I don’t think it’s going to go well.
Steve M.
I haven’t read through the comments, so I don’t know if anyone else has said this, but let me offer the opinion that Rasmussen is doing what Rasmussen always does: faking a poll to generate the results the GOP establishment wants.
Patricia Kayden
Nice poll, but anything could happen between now and November. Wouldn’t shock me if he squeaked out a win.
I notice a lot of criticism directed at McCaskill. Since anyone is better than Akin, however, her shortcomings should be irrelevant. Despite his “apology”, Akin can see absolutely no circumstances when a woman should have access to abortion. Not cool. And quite terrifying.
The Moar You Know
He’s in it to win it, and we may get really lucky and he won’t. He is FUCKING PISSED at Romney, I heard him on the radio and the rage was palpable.
Litlebritdifrnt
@jwb:
I hope there are some financial geniuses out there going over the documents right now. I can’t wait to see their thoughts on this. It is like having a still wrapped present under the christmas tree.
AHH onna Droid
@Sad_Dem: Disagree. First off, rich ppl don’t retire at 65. That’s for working ppl. Ha ha psych! Actually, you will be working at Walmart.
Second, I song grok the boomer hate. Polls show again and again that Gen X is by far the more conservative generation. And thr so-called ‘ greatest gen’ messed up the entitlements because it wasn’t good enough to benefit from the greatest economic expansion and rise in living standards in the world at the time, they wanted to cash in like the ‘ lucky duckies’ in their youth who received ssi without having paid into it.
Shawn in ShowMe
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Considering the good ‘ol boy culture of Missouri I’m not convinced a liberal could win a Senate seat, let alone a female liberal. Robin Carnahan is the most high-profile liberal in the state, is likable, thoughtful, received endorsements from all the major newspapers and was beaten soundly by a good ol’ boy when she ran 2 years ago.
jwb
@Litlebritdifrnt: One Tweet says that Romney’s 1999 retrospective retirement package included some business entity not created until 2002. Neat trick.
Corner Stone
@Amir Khalid: It’s already been said in response to this, but the simple fact is the GOP has been using code for at least 60 years. They win by tying two unrelated events together and reassuring the faithful that they really understand what those things mean. It’s all code, phrasing and curious juxtaposition.
But the ones who get it, really get it. And they don’t want anyone else seeing into their clubhouse. If the guy came out and said government shouldn’t spend a penny on black people, millions of GOP voters would rally to him. But the leaders would have to deny that kind of talk, and they just don’t want the hassle.
For the birth issues, you just aren’t allowed to say women are sluts and fuck off if you couldn’t keep your legs shut, especially if you couldn’t fight off your attacker. Who you probably led on relentlessly until he couldn’t stop himself.
dmsilev
@jwb: It’s a prospectively retroactive retirement package. Perfectly normal, doesn’t everyone have one?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@cckids:
I wouldn’t be too afraid of that, not because it won’t happen, but because there is absolutely nothing that can be done. They would have a backlash just because the sun came up in the morning.
4tehlulz
Mitt will be asking for cease fire within 24 hrs.
xian
@Triassic Sands: Ras = Fox, part of the republican narrative wurlitzer
Older_Wiser
McCaskill may be a Blue Dog, but she’s the Dems’ Blue Dog. I’m very left and will continue to cheer her on. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.
And yes, onward with the Bain docs. I can’t wait. : )
jwb
@dmsilev: Sure, I have one. And for some reason I keep messing up retrospective and retroactive.
quannlace
Maybe THEY are starting to root for the Hurricane Issac
The Republic of Stupidity
@jwb:
Perhaps he’ll turn out to be a close personal friend of Jerry Sandusky…
Linda Featheringill
@AHH onna Droid: #64
Entitlements:
The big austerity, entitlement-slashing hasn’t happened yet. Several people have suggested such programs but haven’t managed to get enough votes in congress to make it into law.
A lot of us here are working to try to prevent such austerity measures from being enacted. That’s what we’re doing.
jwb
@Litlebritdifrnt: And the media tweeters are in heavy whining mode about having to work through all these BORING financial reports.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Patricia Kayden:
Not, they’re aren’t. For crawl-over-glass Dems like me, criticizing her is the only leverage I have to remind her of that (D) after her name. Not giving her money won’t mean squat in the big picture.
Her shortcomings, overall, impact her ability to, as said above, connect with the 3.45 independent voters she sooooo seriously works to get *and* a lot of what I call “casual Dems”. Out here in red, rurl, Misery, most Dems are of the “casual” type. They want to be asked for their vote, they want a Senator who is perceived at representing their values. Rightly or wrongly, because
BlancheClaire has so assiduously courted voters who will never vote for her, she’s done a gangbuster job of alienating those “casual Dems”. In red, rurl Misery, there aren’t many of them but she needs all of them to win. The old tactic of “win big in STL and KC and screw the rest of the state” is a paradigm that went out when she lost her bid for governor in 04. She learned that lesson in 06 but effectively squandered the support of “casual Dems” since then.As another poster has said before, live here and you’ll see how ass-backwards this state has gotten over the last 15 years.
MikeJ
@cckids:
One thing already has R’s everywhere energized, and it ain’t the fact my Lambo’s blue.
Dr. Squid
@Linda Featheringill: This is more of the same from Ras. Being an organ of the RNC, their polls are supposed to support the RNC storyline of the day, which in this case is “Akin shoulda dropped out.”
Dummies. You’re supposed to put this out before the deadline, not after.
Here’s guessing the RNC preferred storyline will change next week. Akin will have a 5 point lead again in Ras.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Shawn in ShowMe:
She ran an epic fail of a campaign not helped by the teatard surge that year.
It does show the difference in a candidate’s statewide appeal when running for a state office vs a federal one.
Like you, I don’t believe a liberal like Carnahan, female, yes, can win a federal statewide election here anymore, thus I understand McCaskill’s approach. But, she constantly opens her mouth to spout off Repup talking points at worst or hints at underminding the overall Dem agenda in Congress. As scared a politician as Claire is, it still amazes me that she still hasn’t figured out when to STFU on issues so as to benefit her with her base, not some attempt to mollify people here who will never vote for her.
Culture of Truth
He won’t drop out. Nor should he. Hang in there Toddster!
jwb
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Not knowing when the STFU—that again sounds like someone who is not particularly adept at politics.
Corner Stone
@jwb:
More to my previous point re: CM, but it seems she aggressively doesn’t know when to STFU and chooses to bone herself for no damn good reason. I don’t live in MO, but casual observation makes me cringe at her choices.
WereBear
It’s gold, Jerry, gold! (Seinfeld reference.)
Punchy
Claire McCatSkillz is not going to win MO. Period.
celticdragonchick
The Sullivan kitty pouncing on wharf rat Warren…
celticdragonchick
@Punchy:
Not a real helpful attitude, especially considering that her opponent seems determined to insult everybody who isn’t a middle-aged white male.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@sherparick:
And something else: He must know by now that this is his last race. I just looked up W. Todd Akin, and he’s 65. He’s already given up his House seat, so if he dropped out and ran for the House again, he’d have to wait until 2014, when he’d be 67, and going back into the House without any seniority. He isn’t going to go back to the House. If he stays in the Senate race and wins, he’s only going to serve one term. I can’t see him running again in 2018, when he’s 71, not after this shitstorm. And if the Republicans thought he might be thinking about it, they’d begin to shove him out the day after election day, and keep it up for the next six years. So he has no reason to drop out. If he stays in and loses, he’s no worse off than he’d be if he dropped out.
jwb
@Corner Stone: Her main hope, I think, is that Akin continues to play the fool and that her campaign can cut a couple of decent commercials and otherwise keep her under wraps. Akin seems just unhinged enough that I think she has a decent shot; but that’s not really saying anything in her favor.
schrodinger's cat
@celticdragonchick: Isn’t Rick Warren’s church called Saddleback or something similar, it should be called Saddle bags instead.
Punchy
@celticdragonchick: I’m sorry, but I live in a reality-based world when it comes to MO. As CSAoR said above, the state is seriously fucked up. Prolly redder than NC. Likely redder than SD and maybe Nebraska. For her to win would take an epic collapse by the GOP, but they wont. When Akin’s numbers hit the bottom (say, in a week), Koch will pay for the new ballots to be printed, Akin will be booted, and Steeleman (or for fuck’s sake, the other old white cracker) will be inserted, and win by 5%.
They call MO a swing state, but even McCain took MO in 2008. In this super-hyper partisan era, some states just wont elect Dems anymore; MO is one of them.
BC
@Villago Delenda Est: Aw, but do you remember Mel Carnahan, who died in October 2000 but couldn’t be replaced on ballot and nevertheless went on to defeat John Ashcroft? (This was 2000 Senate race in Missouri) So there is a time when no matter what happens the candidate cannot be replaced. If Rove is going to act, he has to do it soon.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Corner Stone:
Preeeecisely. As Charlie Pierce recently wrote about her, she doesn’t understand the concept of Do. No. Harm.
She can toss in her occasional blue dog votes for Republican issues if she thinks that’ll win her votes here (it won’t) but jeeeesuskeeeristonabike, during the last 5 years, she’s had a fair number of cringe worthy moments.
Note those weren’t when she was campaigning. While she’s no Harry Reid when it comes to a statewide campaign, in 06, she did a credible job which is why, as a candidate, she has a chance. Not much of one but she does have one.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Punchy:
A Kenyan Muslim who pals around with terrorists was beaten by a Real American War Hero by a margin of 1/10th of one percent. In South Dakota, McCain won by 8.5 points. In Nebraska, he won by 15 points.
celticdragonchick
@Punchy:
If Akin folds and the Kocks money bomb another candidate into supremacy…I would agree with you. However, Akins had his chance to fold gracefully and he refused. He is riding on ego and teabagger contributions so he can claim he is standing up against GOP apparatchiks. I don’t think he is going to fold. Period. He is too fucking stupid and too fucking egomaniacal to go away.
MikeJ
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: If Obama has a good GOTV operation in St Louis (and the polls stay open until everybody has voted) she’ll win.
Alex S.
McCaskill needs to know when to shut up and when to speak. She could learn a few things from Mary Landrieu. Akin however is a very weka candidate. I think McCaskill will survive. I don’t know why people are so pessimistic about the race. And I don’t know why states like Michigan or Nevada are on people’s swing states lists, but Missouri isn’t.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Punchy:
I wouldn’t say “redder” per se but we’ve been hard-veering to the right since the mid-to-late 90s. The Carnahan election in 2000 was an outlier, most accounts I read indicate the election was too close to call before he was killed in the crash.
Another problem here is the statewide Dem party, it’s a mess. Major candidates essentially run their own campaigns and screw everybody else, there’s a huge sense of rice bowlism and every candidate for his/herself.
The Repup machine here is good, no doubt about that. The problem is that they’ve run out of first and second stringers for offices like this Senate seat. As has been pointed out elsewhere, while the Repup *machine* is good, the overall Repup voters are splintered into the machine (monied) guys (who backed Brunner), the teatards (who backed Steelman) and the talibangalists (who back Akin). My admitedly imperfect read on the state Repups is that as long as Akin doesn’t quit, he won’t be “replaced”. He might not get a lot of help but the machine guys will fall into line and at least not publicly try to throw him under the bus because prior to his opening his mouth, he was gonna be the next Senator from Misery.
Now, he’s put the seat into play.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Alex S.:
Because people are busy watching the culture war in places like Joplin, instead of you know, counting votes. Obama is running against The Mormon Other not Newt Gingrich.
pseudonymous in nc
McCaskill’s calling bullshit on the Assmussen poll, which I think is about right — Scotty Dog is nothing if not a GOPerative, and at this point in the political season, he’s in the business of shaping the political narrative, not winning accuracy awards from Nate Silver.
His gang was given the task of putting the shits up Akin, and it delivered.
I’ve actually met McCaskill, back in ’08 when she was doing campaign work for Obama, and while she annoys the hell out of me at times, I think it’s a mistake to class her alongside Lincoln and Landrieu. She knows the political dynamics of her state pretty well, and Missouri is, alas, a state that has become redder over the past 20 years.
schrodinger's cat
OK since I am not southern or evangelical can someone explain to me what evangelicals have against Mormons. I mean they are a religion that originated in the US, and yes they have some crazy beliefs, but then which religion doesn’t. What are the historical roots of this animosity?
Mnemosyne
@Punchy:
I dunno — a lot of people have pointed out several very good reasons that Akin has for telling the Missouri and national Republican parties to go fuck themselves. Unless they’re able to unleash a truly spectacular bribe, it sounds to me like Akin isn’t going anywhere, especially if he’s supposed to graciously step down as a favor for the Republicans who didn’t want him to be nominated in the first place.
If Akin does drop out, all bets are off, but I just don’t have the same confidence you do that Akin will waltz into office over McCaskill after this fiasco.
Jay C
@Corner Stone:
Edited for clarity….
Shawn in ShowMe
@schrodinger’s cat:
There’s quite a few differences but the deal breaker is Mormonism takes a polytheistic view of the Trinity. They also think that God himself walked the earth BEFORE becoming a sky king. And that he has at least one wife that gave birth to us all.
Would make a kick ass Jack Kirby comic book.
djork
@schrodinger’s cat: Mormons had the temerity to write their own bible, for starters.
I knew a fundie who believed Catholics were going to hell because they “worshipped idols/ ikons.” So, I’m not really sure they need a reason, outside of the fact that they’re different.
grandpa john
@pseudonymous in nc: They consider them a cult rather than a true religion
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Remember, entire wars were fought in Europe over transubstantiation. Religious believers don’t need logical reasons to hate each other.
But, as djork says, the split starts with the fact that the Mormons have their own separate bible that they consider equal to the “real” bible that other Christians follow and goes on from there.
valency
Why drop out? Because Akin is getting a torrent of poison pen messages as we speak from his own side threatening him with dire consequences and blacklisting from the movement forever for not dropping out. Ann Coulter, for example, is not outraged that Akin thinks these things, she’s outraged because he created a shanda fur die goyim (metaphorically) by letting slip the Tea Party agenda publically, and thus becoming a liability.