Missouri's Representative Fighting Uphill Battle to Stay in Senate Race
The GOP is racing against the clock to get Missouri's Republican candidate for one of that state's senate seats to bow out of the race.
It started on Sunday, when Representative Todd Akin appeared on a St Louis Fox affiliate KTVI-TV and said in response to the question would he support abortions for women who become pregnant as the result of rape. He said, "It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
His answer to that question ignited a firestorm on both sides of the aisle, and the only other person besides himself that would like to move on from his remark is his competition for the senate seat, Claire McCaskill. McCaskill feels he should not be forced out of the race, saying that to do so would be to "kick sand in the face of the primary voters" in her state. Akin won the Missouri primary with ease, beating out Sarah Steelman, former state treasurer, and millionaire John Brunner just two weeks ago.
But, the heat is on. Akin has been asked across the GOP board to step down from the race and allow another Republican to run against McCaskill.
Texas Senator John Cornyn, the head of the National Senatorial Campaign Committee, called Akin today telling him not to expect the $5 million that the committee was going to use for advertising in Missouri's senate race. A short time after, Crossroads GPS, the super PAC founded by Karl Rove confirmed that they were pulling the remainder of the $5 million that they had earmarked for the Missouri race, including the ad that they had planned to air on Wednesday.
The GOP had counted on Akin to take the contested senate seat in the red-leaning state to further their goal of taking over the senate in this election.
If Akin doesn't remove himself from the race by 5 pm tommorrow afternoon, it would take a court order to do so. This is something that the GOP does not want to see happen. They would rather have Akin dismiss himself so that they can place Brunner, who they think has the best chance of beating McCaskill this fall.
