In his "Eleven Reasons Akin didn't quit," Jeff Smith, a former Missouri politico and now political scholar, reserves the most eerily revealing for last:
Missouri politicians who have in the past tried to negotiate with Akin describe it as sort of like trying to negotiate with Ahmadinejad. He is a zealot, in every sense of the word. As one top Republican said this morning, "It’s hard to reason with an idiot." Or maybe, it’s just hard to use worldly logic on someone who is divinely inspired.
On the bit more satanically secular side, Smith predicts (#7) that Rove-Cornyn's stonewalling won't hold:
The National Republican Senatorial Committee and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS are not going to spend hundreds of millions around the country and then leave Missouri on the table out of stubbornness. Akin, an anti-gambling fanatic, should be smart enough to call their bluff.
For sure, Mitch McConnell will be busy loosening the stonework. If he succeeds, Missouri's accelerating rightward decay provides at least a realistic shot for Akin. On the other hand--and this heartland buffoonery is nothing if not a snakepit of on the other hands--"the Akin controversy," says political scientist Brian Calfano, "might be an indicator of an upper bound on how much the state electorate will tolerate right-wing rhetoric."
Yesterday I had Akin listed as clinically dead. But if Smith is correct about Rove-Cornyn, then Akin earns an upgrade to critical (see #8).
If he regains major funding, the DNC and the Obama campaign can hit the RNC and the Romney campaign for tacitly endorsing Akin's views, which are toxic to female voters.
Posted by: Josh | August 22, 2012 at 10:53 AM