Congressman Todd Akin presents a small problem to the Republican Party. Like his compatriates, Akin believes that God has given woman a magic bullet to kill the sperm of a "legitimate" rapist, while at the same time letting less offensive sperm of a husband, friend or "illegitimate" rapist go by unharmed.
This is is, and as it turns out, other Republican officeholders' notion of why it is perfectly OK to force women who were raped to bear the children of their rapists. If they were pregnant, so they say, they weren't really "forcibly raped" but were somewhat compliant during the act in something calling back to Claytie Williams' idea that women who are raped should just "relax and enjoy it".
But Republicans are just about as outraged as the Democrats, moreso even, because of what this could mean for votes in a presidential year.
And why is that? First, not only is Todd Aiken now unelectable as a US Senator, he is probably unelectable back into his own House seat. Second, Todd Aiken is famously allied with Vice Presidential nominee-apparent Paul Ryan, who is not so famously associated with HR 3, which he co-sponsors, which would outlaw abortion even for rape victims (presumably along the same lines of logic that haunts the mind of Aiken).
Nope, Aiken is an albatross now. He is a giant millstone around the GOP and needs to be shoved under the bus quickly. At this typing, Aiken is still living in his self-constructed dreamland and is in it to win it. Prediction: before the sun sets tomorrow, Aiken will withdraw.
Apparently, Missouri has some statutes on the books that will allow this, and from what I am hearing, there could be an appointed nominee to replace him on the ballot if he withdraws, a wholly undemocratic process, but there it is.
My advice to Akin at this juncture is not to mention to anyone that he doesn't know where he will be living on Election Day. Tom DeLay couldn't resist saying that 6 years ago and look where he wound up.
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