Steve M axes a reasonable question.
Obviously I understand why the GOP would prefer it if Todd Akin would
make himself scarce, but I don't understand why Republicans are as desperate as they seem right now to have him out of the Missouri Senate race.
I'm looking at this from the point of view of the persuadable voters the
GOP wants in order to win other races in the fall. In my experience,
the GOP has never had to pay a particularly high price with these voters for the craziness in its midst.
Fair enough. I don't disagree with Steve that the Romney campaign was planning to go all culture war after the conventions, and Akin went too nuts too soon.
But that's just the Romney campaign. Why everyone else?
Well, let's check the peanut gallery. Hello, goober.
Still, he has a few diehard defenders, who are fighting the wrong battle on his behalf. This isn’t about abortion or rape or “women’s health.” Nor is it about “defending our own” and not capitulating to the Left. (Heck, in this case, the Left wants Akin to stay in the race.) It’s about winning control of the U.S. Senate and putting a crucial swing state into the GOP column in November. Nothing — nothing — else matters.
If the GOP could think tactically, it would be dangerous. If it could think strategically, it would be a majority party. But it has too many Akins in it for either of those things ever to happen.
It's about cynicism and being in charge because you want to be in charge.
Ponnuru pipes something similar, albeit in his native winsome Fallohide:
Via Commentary’s blog, I see defenses of Akin — of his continuing his campaign, that is — from Tony Perkins and Kirk Cameron.
The Wise Council deliberates.
Those of us who take the view — the view shared by Akin, Cameron, and Perkins — that the law should protect the right to life of unborn children have an obligation to them, if we think that Akin’s staying in the race sets back that cause, to urge him to leave. And there can have been no serious doubt from Sunday onward that some other pro-lifer would have had a better shot of winning the seat.
Which is great fun, because the precise reason why what Akin said is a problem is that its idiocy and incoherence are precisely the same idiocy and incoherence that undergird the entire "pro-life" "argument."
Hence in this specific instance I have to say that I respect Kirk Cameron more than certain other people on his "side," because at least he is a consistently principled incoherent idiot who inexplicably gets to bother the nation with his crapheaded misogynist opinions. Hooray for Kirk Cameron!
The far right wants to win an election, and is terrified of being called nothing but a pack of cards, because they know they are nothing but a pack of cards.
