Todd Akin Doesn’t Speak For Anyone But Todd Akin
The addition Rep. Paul Ryan to Mitt Romney’s campaign shifted the debate in the presidential race into some difficult area for Democrats. Ryan is an eloquent communicator on fiscal issues. There is perhaps no candidate better suited to pointing out the problems in the nation’s budget and entitlement programs than Ryan, and that was going to be a problem for Obama and the Democrats.
Add to that an economy that continues to stagnate and a Newsweek cover story blasting telling Obama to hit the road and it was clear the Democrats needed to change the subject.
Then along came Todd Akin and some positively stupid comments about rape, pregnancy and abortion and Democrats got their distraction.
The appeal of using Akin as a bludgeon against the Romney/Ryan ticket, and Republicans in general, was so strong that it lured President Obama into taking questions from the White House press corps for the first time in months today (best line, ABC’s Jake Tapper saying “don’t be a stranger” to the President as he departed, no doubt not to appear before them again in months). Democrats and their surrogate in the media have begun a furious campaign to use the Akin comments to drive a wedge between the more conservative House Republicans and the rest of the party.
That this all slots perfectly into the left’s “war on women” narrative is just gravy for them.
But cutting through all this political theater, we should remember that Todd Akin doesn’t speak for anyone but Todd Akin. The national GOP is pulling their support from Akin’s Senate campaign, and that’s the right thing to do even though the Democrat incumbent in that race – Claire McCaskill – was probably going to lose. And that, as they say, is that. Akin is on his own.
Political point scoring is what it is, but it’s telling how hard Democrats are working to make Akin an issue, as opposed to the economy. Or the budget. Or any other actual issue under the sun.
Tags: Abortion, Barack Obama, claire mccaskill, rape, todd akin
