The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Top Missouri Republicans Call for Akin to Quit Senate Race; He Says He’s Staying In

Posted on | August 21, 2012 | 33 Comments

Statement issued from the office of Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and endorsed by former Missouri Republican senators John Ashcroft, Kit Bond, John Danforth, and Jim Talent:

 “We do not believe it serves the national interest for Congressman Todd Akin to stay in this race. The issues at stake are too big, and this election is simply too important. The right decision is to step aside.”

William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection reports that in an interview on Dana Loesch’s radio show today, Akin said he won’t quit.

Via Memeorandum, with further commentary by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit.

UPDATE: On Twitter, I was wondering whether this is a hostage standoff, a suicide watch, or quite possibly both. This is the only situation of its kind that I can remember. There have been somewhat similar situations before, but nothing exactly like this. Nearly everybody across the spectrum on the GOP side is telling Akin to quit, yet he’s still doing the Marvin K. Mooney act:

Akin told conservative talk radio host Mike Huckabee he’s staying in the race.
“We are going to continue with this race for the U.S. Senate,” he said Tuesday afternoon. . . .
The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a strongly-worded statement after Akin’s radio interview, encouraging him to step aside.
“It should not be lost on anyone that some of the only voices not calling for Congressman Akin to do the right thing and step aside are Claire McCaskill and the leaders of the pro-abortion movement. Senator McCaskill knows that the only way she wins re-election is if Todd Akin is her opponent in November,” NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh said in a statement. “We continue to hope that Congressman Akin will do the right thing for the values he holds dear, but there should be no mistake — if he continues with this misguided campaign, it will be without the support and resources of the NRSC.”

How does Akin imagine he can possibly defeat McCaskill without any national basis of support, and with every Republican official of any rank or influence opposing him? What sort of madness — “legitimate” madness — has gotten hold of Akin’s mind?

Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat.

UPDATE II: “There’s no fixing stupid.” Indeed, a candidate stupid enough to say what Akin said is a candidate stupid enough to think he can survive after saying it, so that error is stacked atop error. Sort of like the magic of compound interest, in a way.

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: Election 2012, Missouri, Senate

Rove: Akin ‘Irreparably Damaged’; UPDATE: NRSC Turns Against Akin

Posted on | August 21, 2012 | 16 Comments

Karl Rove just appeared on Fox News and pronounced Todd Akin’s campaign doomed beyond hope of redemption, saying that his Crossroads GPS super-PAC would not “throw good money after bad” for the “irreparably damaged” Republican Senate candidate.

Rove pointed out that calls for Akin to step aside have been nearly universal, from the party leadership to the conservative grassroots. Ann Coulter wrote a special column at Human Events saying that Akin must quit “if he loves his country.” The Associated Press reported there are “ominous signs” for Akin, and mentioned the candidate’s attempts to apologize:

In a radio interview with former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, Akin repeatedly apologized for the remarks but also vowed to stay in the race.
“The good people of Missouri nominated me, and I’m not a quitter,” Akin said.
The uproar began Sunday, when St. Louis television station KTVI aired an interview in which Akin was asked if he would support abortions for women who have been raped.
“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,” Akin said.

The nomination that Akin attributes to “the good people of Missouri” was in fact a 36-percent plurality in the Aug. 7 GOP primary. There are reports — as yet unconfirmed — that leading Missouri Republicans, including John Ashcroft, will hold a press conference and call on Akin to step down.

UPDATE: CAC at Ace of Spades HQ dismantles a poll that appeared to show that Akin was still competitive. Akin has issued an “apology” ad but Ed Morrissey comments:

While this ad strongly suggests that Akin doesn’t have an exit strategy in mind, the day is still long. I would be slightly surprised if Akin remained in the race by 5 pm CT today.

Akin’s belief that he can stay on the Republican ticket is contradicted by this headline:

NRSC sends out list of conservative
pundits calling for Akin to step down

Kind of a big hint there.

Category: Missouri, Senate

McCaskill: Akin Is A Knuckle Dragger. My Knuckle Dragger. Can’t Take Him Before November 6, Or Ima Cry

Posted on | August 21, 2012 | 5 Comments

by Smitty


HotAir, emphasis original:

According to WaPo, the combined $1.5 million that McCaskill’s campaign and Democratic groups spent in the last weeks before the primary “attacking” Akin as a true conservative was more money than his own team spent on ads over the course of the entire campaign. That’s how badly they wanted to face him, and their strategy worked so well that they might get Brunner or Steelman or maybe even a more established Missouri Republican instead. Keep an eye on Jim Talent: He denied today that he’d run again for his old seat, possibly because he’s in line to be defense secretary under President Romney, but the calls for him to replace Akin on the ballot have already begun. Your country needs you, Jim.

Claire will have to unpack her narratives:

Came home from campaigning last spring.
Saw people, places and things.
We barely had arrived,
Pollsters asked us to describe
The people, places and every last thing.
So we unpacked our narratives.

I unpacked “knuckle dragging” first.
Those pro-lifers are the “worst.”
Then I picked “Christianist” and
Next I picked “raaaaacist” and
Then I was ready to tell them my tale,
’cause I’d unpacked my adjectives.

Narratives are words you use to really frame things,
Handy words to carry around.
Dems are sunny, Republicans are rainy
Boys are dumb and women brainy
Narratives can show you which way.

Narratives are often used to help us destroy things
To say how thin how fat how short how tall.
Girls who are tall can get taller,
Boys who are small can get smaller,
Till Claire is the tallest
And Claire is the smallest of all.

We hiked along without care.
Then we found a GOP bear!
He was a hairy bear!
He was a scary bear!
We beat a hasty retreat from his lair,
And described him with Narratives!

. . .

Category: Democrats, Missouri

Regulations Not The Problem: Complexity

Posted on | August 21, 2012 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

I disagree here:

How government became a deviant subculture is a story of good intentions gone awry. We tried to avoid government abuse by replacing individual responsibility with detailed rules and objective legal proceedings. Never again would officials play favorites or indulge personal prejudices. Government would be an efficient assembly line.

I assert that there is nothing particularly deviant about civil servants. Indeed, on an individual level, my experience has been that people who are risk-averse enjoy the tenure-like comfort of a public-sector job, swapping some gross pay for benefits. Our descent into Orwellian hell has not been about trading responsibility for rules. Rather, it is that, given time, budget, staff, and word processors, our government has reached critical morass.

Which operating system has more systems deployed: Microsoft’s Win*, or the various Unix flavors (with Apple’s line standing far closer to Unix)? Linux, in particular, is wrecking all non-desktop comers (supercomputers, routers, servers) because Linus Torvalds is ruthlessly anti-bloat. The U.S. Code is far more like Windows, with its tendency to add more layers of noise atop the existing crap, without insufficient trimming of legacy crap.

And why is this? Howard’s article misses the crucial point: $

The collapse of everything into DC has been driven by the fact that DC is where the loot is. There will be no significant reform of any sort until there is (a) a come-to-Beavis meeting on the Federal Reserve, and its role as the chief cancer of the world, and (b) a commitment to de-scoping Leviathan.

We’ll get there, by hook or by crook. Stein’s Law seems thoroughly played out.

Update: What’s up with Bill Quick? In the first place, Ubuntu is a full distribution; kernel, Debian apt package manager, X11 windowing environment, desktop, and sundry apps. Linus Torvalds controls the Linux kernel. To say that Linux is Ubuntu is to say Congress is the United States.
Secondly,

the whole move to DC is not driven by the fact that DC is where the money is. That puts the cart before the horse. The reason that DC is where the money is, is DC’s ability to steal money collect nationwide taxes and regulatory fees, as well as do unlimited borrowing (states and municipalities have to actually balance budgets, sort of) which lets it siphon floods of money from locales and regions to Rome on the Potomac.

I really don’t see the importance of the cart/horse distinction here. I’ll give you coroutines. How ’bout that? However you’re slicing it, it had better end up in major reform and decentralization.

via Instapundit

Category: Congress, Instapundit

Is The U.S. Dollar Raaaaacist?

Posted on | August 21, 2012 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

Given the working definition of raaaaacism as ‘defying Obama’, one may be forced into an affirmative response:

The trend is for Romney fundraising to increase, whereas Obama’s appears to have crested. Power Line notes: “Not only that, [Romney’s] advantage will be increased by what seems to be a more efficient–i.e., cheaper–campaign operation.” Whereas #OccupyResoluteDesk’s campaign may be in some disarray. In other news, King George has been buying gold. Mere coincidence. Do not connect those dots.  As with the job numbers, and math in general, the dollar seems to be guilty of ‘hating a black man in the White House‘. Bad dollar: bad.

The usual DGCK warning applies. While not a kid, Todd Akin reminds us all that Bidenism is only acceptable if your name is Biden. And we have over two months to go. Fortunately, the Romney campaign seems to have a good understanding of the medium pace.

via Power Line

Category: Barack Obama, Election 2012

LIVE AT FIVE: 08.21.12

Posted on | August 21, 2012 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Akin Takin’ Heat But Hasn’t Quit Yet

Not yet begun to fight?


Facing pressure from NRSC, Levin, Romney, Coulter and many others, GOP Senate nominee digs in

Obama Campaign: Unsustainable Burn Rate?
Spent $10 million more than campaign raised in July

Ethiopian PM Zenawi Dies, 57
Felled by infection, Zenawi improved economy, health and education while being criticized for abuses



POLITICS
Appeals Court Rules Alabama Can’t Check Students’ Immigration Status

A line of people waits to get seats at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals


Okays police checks of suspects’ papers, though

Romney, Ryan Turn Mediscare Attacks Back On Obama

Could GOP Convention Boost Stocks?



West Virginia Ranked As #1 Party School

NYC Cab Crackdown Does Fine

Curt Schilling Calls RI Governor Chafee ” A Dunce Of Epic Proportions”



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Up Slightly Before Eurodebt Crisis Meeting, US Stockpile Report; NYMEX $96.37, Brent $114.07
European Stocks Rise
Apple Sets Record For Company Value At $624 Billion
Aetna To Buy Coventry Healthcare
Facebook’s Ambition Collides With Harsh Market
What Does Groupon’s Collapse Mean For Tech Stocks? How About: Nothing
Corn Harvest Ahead Of Schedule
Vietnam Tycoon Arrest Unsettles Markets
Epic Battle Between Apple, Samsung Goes To Jury
UK To Get 4G This Year As T-Mobile, Orange Get Regulator’s Permission
Microsoft Office A Big Draw For Windows Tablets?
Walmart Offers $20 Discount On $100 iTunes Card
Windows Phone To Top Blackberry In US By Year’s End
Plants v. Zombies Shambles In Late Spring 2013
New Mario Game Is All About The Gold



SPORTS
Pale Hose Power Past Yankees, 9-6

Jeter ties Eddie Murray on hits list


Jeter has good game, but effort wasted as Sox bounce back from Royals sweep with four homers

Snakes Blown Out By Fish 12-3, Trade Drew To A’s For Prospect

The Rocket Returns

Flyers’ Hartnell Gets Six-Year Extension

WAC To Drop Football After 2012 Season

Royals Go Quietly In 5-1 Loss At Tampa Bay

Tracy Singles In 13th; Nats’ 5-4 Defeat Of Braves Opens Lead In NL East To Six Games



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Legendary Comic Phyllis Diller Dies, 95

Phyllis Diller, 1917-2012 RIP


Died peacefully in her sleep at home, surrounded by family.

Rosie O’Donnell Still Alive After Heart Attack

Tony Scott Had Inoperable Brain Cancer – Or Did He?

Jenifer Aniston – Hiding Her Engagement Ring?

Did Justin Timberlake And Jessica Biel Say “I Do” In Secret?

Taylor Swift & Conor Kennedy Smooching In Cape Cod



Wynonna’s Husband Has Leg Amputated After Horrific Motorcycle Crash

Hilary Swank, John Campisi Split

Deleted Scene From “The Avengers” – To Smash Or Not To Smash?

NBC Lands Michael J. Fox’s Family Comedy



FOREIGNERS
Pussy Riot And The Militant Godless
Jihadis Hit Chairman Of JCS’ Plane, Gen. Dempsey Unhurt
Ecuador’s President Warns UK Against Embassy Raid To Snatch Assange
Obama Warns Syria Against Using WMD
Kurdish Separatists Deny Responsibility For Car Bomb On Syria/Turkey Border
Philippine Interior Secretary’s Body Recovered From Crash Site
No Mine Firings As South Africa Mourns
Iran Unveils Upgrade To Tactical Missile; Announces Intent To Build Own Fighters
Russia, PRC Warn West Against Syria Intervention
25 Killed In Venezuela Prison Riot, Dozens Wounded



BLOGS & STUFF
WyBlog: Survey Says Women Drink More After Marriage, And It’s The Husband’s Fault
Legal Insurrection: PPP Finds Akin Still Leads McCaskill – Troll Poll?
NRO Campaign Spot: Cornyn To Akin – “Carefully Consider What Is Best.” Hint, Hint, Nudge, Nudge.
American Power: “I Would Be Thinking About What’s In The Best Interests Of The Party”
Pirate’s Cove: The Akin Issue – Don’t Drop Out
Ann Coulter: If Akin Loves His Country, He Will Step Aside
Lonely Conservative: President Thin Skin Loathes Romeny, Didn’t Want To Golf With Boehner
Ramesh Ponnuru: The Case For Talent
Power Line: Romney Flush With Cash, Poised For Stretch Run
Newsbusters: DU, Kossacks Go Berserk Over Newsweek Cover
Wake Up America: Paul Krugman Gets Busted For Lying To His Readers About Obamacare
Zombie: Where Our $500 Million Went – Solyndra Tubes Used As Modern Art

Category: Live at Five

Objectively, Todd Akin Is Doomed

Posted on | August 20, 2012 | 29 Comments

Got offline for a few hours during which, among other things, I discussed the Todd Akin situation by phone with a couple of people. A point I made: This isn’t “Macaca” — it’s not as if the Left ginned up a controversy over a ridiculous bit of nothing. And another point: Compared to this, Trent Lott’s 100th birthday tribute to Strom Thurmond was a minor kerfuffle.

While you discuss that amongst yourselves — and Charles Johnson does his obligatory “Neoconfederate Racist Hate Blogger R.S. McCain Defends Strom Thurmond” post — let’s see what Allahpundit has to say at Hot Air:

[I]t’s important that people like Hannity, Coulter, and the boss emeritus are leaning on this guy too, not just Romney and Reince Priebus. Without pressure from all-stars on the right, he can dig in and turn it into a “weak-ass establishment RINOs are selling me out to the Democrats” populist attack on D.C. Republicans.

I’m not saying Todd Akin is a bad person, nor am I urging a zero-tolerance policy on gaffes for all GOP candidates. Todd Akin is, to a great degree, a victim of circumstance. In some other year, perhaps, Akin could have apologized and moved on. Not this year.

Back in March, the Democrat seized on FlukeGate as Exhibit A in their “Republican War on Women” argument, which forced the GOP to invest enormous effort in turning the conversation back to the issues — the economy, jobs, deficits, etc. — where they were prepared to fight the fall campaign.

And then, out of the clear blue sky, Todd Akin punts it.

It was like the point man in the infantry patrol who hits the trip wire that detonates the mine in the enemy ambush.  Suddenly the entire platoon finds itself pinned down under carefully aimed small-arms fire from camouflaed emplacements, while mortars and artillery come pouring in on pre-determined grid coordinates.

The Democrats and their media allies had all their arguments and talking points ready to roll, having rehearsed the whole drill five months ago during FlukeGate. Suddenly, everything Mitt Romney ever said about abortion and everything Paul Ryan ever said about abortion is legtimate, relevant and newsworthy.

Ouf of a clear blue fucking sky.

An unforced error by a candidate in a red state should have been an easy Senate pickup for the Republicans not only puts that pickup in jeopardy, but in fact forces the GOP to re-do all the work they’ve done for the past five months to try to focus the fall campaign squarely on the issues where they can and should clobber the Democrats. Spare me the complaints about the unfairness of it, and don’t try to play the True Conservative card on me.

This isn’t about ideology, it’s about basic political competence — or the lack thereof — and a candidate whose ambition led him into a high-stakes game that he clearly wasn’t prepared to play. Nobody put a gun to Todd Akin’s head and forced him to run for Senate, and surely all the uproar this past spring about an alleged Republican “War on Women” should have been ample warning to GOP candidates to be very careful around such issues.

Never mind. Hindsight remorse is as irrelevant as my opinion or your opinion, because we’re talking facts here, and the fact is there’s no way Akin survives this — no way at all. The elders and wise men of the Republican Party will have him out of there within 24 hours, and probably a lot less than that. By lunchtime Tuesday the question will be who will replace Akin on the ticket.

He is doomed beyond all hope of redemption, no matter what, and now the obligatory Sean Hannity interview:

UPDATE: Mark Levin says it would be a “mistake” for Akin to stay in. If he’s lost Mark Levin . . .

BTW, I’m rather dumbfounded by the number of people on Twitter who see this differently. I was not hasty to jump in on this. By the time I first blogged about it today, Crossroads GPS had pulled out and there were already 23 Memeorandum threads on the “legitimate rape” uproar. It is clear that this is a non-survivable situation for Akin, and if he can’t see that yet, the wise men and elders of the GOP will make sure he sees it soon enough.

Category: Election 2012, Missouri, Senate

Report: Republican Todd Akin Will Withdraw From Missouri Senate Race

Posted on | August 20, 2012 | 104 Comments

Ace of Spades reports that both Erick Erickson and Richard Grinnell are saying on Twitter that Akin will exit the campaign.

The furor over Akin’s remarks about “legitimate rape” — as Michelle Malkin calls it, “The Todd Akin Mess” — currently accounts for the top 23 threads on Memeorandum.

UPDATE: This horrible botch can be blamed squarely on the Missouri GOP Establishment, which lined up behind Akin against Tea Party-backed — and Sarah Palin-endorsed — candidate Sarah Steelman in the primary two weeks ago.

Mike Rathbone at Hot Air: “Hey, I Voted for Steelman.” More than 60 percent of Missouri GOP  primary voters voted for either Steelman or businessman John Brunner.

UPDATE II: National Review is calling for Akin to “step aside” and the terrible thing, from a Republican standpoint, is how unnecessary this disaster was. It was an unforced error in an easily winnable race against an unpopular Democrat incumbent, and it was caused by the predictably timid Republican impulse to back the “safe” candidate who, as in so many previous instances, proved to be not really safe after all.

Damn.

I can tolerate a lot of things in politics, but I despise incompetence.

UPDATE III: Aside from biological nonsense — claiming women can’t get pregnant as a result of rape — Akin’s fundamental problem is that he was arguing the wrong point.

Whenever supporters of abortion start throwing up arguments based on exceptions, the proper response is to point out that well over 90 percent of abortions have nothing whatsoever to do with such exceptions, but are strictly a matter of choice: post-conception birth control. And the pre-Roe history demonstrated that permitting abortion under specific exceptions resulted in those exceptions being abused. The rape exception resulted in false accusations of rape, and the “health” exception resulted in doctors fictionalizing health risks, including false determinations of mental health risks.

If we can ever come to a consensus as a society that abortion is a homicidal act that ought to be against the law, then we might start having a productive conversation about ending it. However, so long as we have “respectable” people who advocate abortion as a good thing — indeed, as a pseudo-sacred constitutional “right” — no meaningful discussion is possible.

The “respectable” people who advocate abortion are paid for their advocacy, and have an articulate elite to echo their viewpoint, while those who speak on behalf of the sanctity of life — well, we’ve got dumbass Republicans like Todd Akin, you see.

UPDATE IV: Some blowback in the comments, and understandable confusion: OK, Akin is one of the “good guys,” granted — but this isn’t about moral virtue or ideological purity, it’s about winning a Senate election in Missouri.

Nor is this a matter of what my opinion is about what should happen. I’m trying to discern what will happen. Having covered a few elections (and a few gaffes) in my time, I’m telling you  (a) Akin’s error is likely beyond recovery at this point, and (b) the same GOP impulse toward “safety” that helped Akin win the primary will likely now result in his being forced out of the race.

Crossroads GPS just pulled its ads out of the Missouri Senate race. Wake up and smell the Karl Rove.

UPDATE V: Ace updates with the Hannity interview and also Ann Coulter calling for Akin to quit. It is what it is: Beyond recovery.

Category: Abortion, Election 2012, Missouri, Senate
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