botching his response<\/a> to a question about the legitimacy of abortion in cases of rape, Akin has been vilified by the Left, and told to drop out of the race by Mitt Romney, several Republican Senators, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Crossroads GPS (the last two representing the two biggest spenders any GOP candidate could ask for).<\/p>\nMany people would have dropped out.\u00a0 With the 6pm deadline to withdraw now passed, Akin is still in.<\/p>\n
Of course his comments will narrow the 11 point advantage he was enjoying over incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill.\u00a0 It will hurt fundraising.\u00a0 And, if the NRSC and Crossroads GPS continue their new boycott of his campaign, Akin will have to figure out a way to get out his message in Missouri\u2019s media markets without the help of his natural allies.<\/p>\n
To be sure, his exit from the race makes obvious sense to anyone associated with him because of a shared party label.\u00a0 If I were Mitt Romney or Massachusetts\u2019 Scott Brown, I wouldn\u2019t want to be dragged into conversations about what someone half a continent away said about an issue I\u2019m not emphasizing in my race.<\/p>\n
Still, I understand why Akin didn\u2019t heed the calls to drop out.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing in it for him.\u00a0 If he leaves now his political career is over.\u00a0 By winning the Senate primary he gave away his U.S. House seat.\u00a0 Judging by the public comments from the party elite, no one is promising him a second act in a year or two with an uncontested run for state office.\u00a0 Also, Akin seems to lack the connections to make a lucrative transition to the private sector.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say Akin had announced that for the good of Missouri and the party he was dropping out today.\u00a0 What happens tomorrow?\u00a0 For a guy who has spent the last 20+ years in elected office, campaigning and governing are what he does.<\/p>\n
No, for Todd Akin, it\u2019s either resurrect an imploding campaign or at least go down in defeat trying.<\/p>\n
Who knows; maybe it\u2019s all downhill from here\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you were Todd Akin (R-MO), would you quit running for U.S. Senate? After botching his response to a question about the legitimacy of abortion in cases of rape, Akin has been vilified by the Left, and told to drop out of the race by Mitt Romney, several Republican Senators, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2033,1193,2160,3774],"class_list":["post-15577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2033","tag-campaign","tag-missouri","tag-todd-akin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15577"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15585,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15577\/revisions\/15585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}