Yesterday national GOPers started gingerly making a walk-back from their chest-beating denouncing of Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin, who many had vowed never to back because he wouldn’t withdraw from the race after his damaging “legitimate rape” comment. Many seemed to be unbeating their chests — edging towards backing him and raising the possibility that Republican money would soon soon be pouring in. In American politics, outrage vanishes with time, particularly among partisans when they desperately want to win an office for their political sports team.
But now Akin — on a somewhat smaller scale — has done it again. He has made another comment that women will find offensive, a statement that seems more like a comment politicians would make during the 1960s days of the Rat Pack than early 21st century America:
More than a month after his comments about “legitimate rape” nearly derailed his campaign for U.S. Senate, Republican Todd Akin said Thursday that it has become clear to him that he will triumph over Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill this fall.
Part of his confidence, he said, comes from McCaskill’s demeanor during their debate last week, which he said was not as “ladylike” as it was when she faced off with Republican Jim Talent in 2006.
“I think we have a very clear path to victory, and apparently Claire McCaskill thinks we do, too, because she was very aggressive at the debate, which was quite different than it was when she ran against Jim Talent,” Akin said. “She had a confidence and was much more ladylike (in 2006), but in the debate on Friday she came out swinging, and I think that’s because she feels threatened.”
– Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called on the Republican Party to denounce Akin’s remark about McCaskill and revoke its support for the GOP Senate candidate.
“Todd Akin is at it again with another comment that’s demeaning to women and offensive to all,” she said in a statement. “What’s truly astonishing is that the national party embraced Todd Akin yesterday and now refuses to repudiate his statement. Unless the national party condemns Todd Akin and his latest comments, every Republican candidate in the country will be held accountable for their support of Akin’s beliefs and sentiments.”
The Dems will now more than ever hammer on Akin as being disrespectful of women, brimming with sexist attitudes and try and press other GOPers to stand by him or distance themselves. And some of the media will do that as well.
So perhaps this should now be Akin’s new theme song:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.