For Missouri, there are two choices: Senator Claire McCaskill who will help advance the country and more importantly isn't like Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman or Congressman Todd Akin, an extreme Republican who is virulently anti-choice, decidedly very Fundie and wrong for the country on so many levels.
For McCaskill, this is a very winnable race. She only polled 3 or 4 points down from Akin(and polled worse against Akin's primary opponents). She is also a good Democrat, albeit slightly Blue Doggish. But here is the more important thing: she's pro-choice getting a 100% score from NARAL, a decent record onLGBT issues including her vote to end DADT, and she hasn't joined in on any Republican filibusters.
Akin is so extreme that he says that McCaskill's campaign is right about those "five things" we should know about him.
After U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill opened her fall re-election campaign by launching a website attacking Republican primary winner Todd Akin on five major issues, his campaign responded by saying McCaskill got the facts right.
"I did not go into everything in each individual issue in depth, but what it looks like is basically things they consider bad but we don't," Akin spokesman Ryan Hite said
Yeah, comparing student loans to Stage III cancer must be quite good according to Tea Party "logic".
The more we learn about Akin, the more extreme and scary he becomes. Comparing federal student loans to cancer and wanting to turn Medicare into a voucher program are just the tip of a very extreme right-wing iceberg. Think Progress has uncovered Akin's links to a very extreme Dominionist group.
According to Think Progress, Akin was heavily influenced by a reactionary minister named Reverend D. James Kennedy, who was quite active in a variant of dominionism and who actively sought to govern America along the lines of Christian Fundimentalism. Rev. Kennedy also once implied that Darwinism was responsible for the Holocaust. No, that would be the Nazis.
Think Progress also illustrates that Akin continues Kennedy's legacy of hate. Akin actively opposes LGBT rights and has said “anybody who knows something about the history of the human race knows that there is no civilization which has condoned homosexual marriage widely and openly that has long survived.” I seem to recall that same line of reasoning widely used by pro-slavery politicans in the 19th Century, talking about how no civilization had ever prohibited slavery. Obviously, this country has survived nearly 150 years without slavery, and about 50 years without "Jim Crow" so Akin's logic is extremely specious.
Think Progress also pointed out that Akin wants an all-out ban on the "morning after" pill. Yes, he's yet another Republican who believes in forced pregnancy and punishing rape victims.
Talking Points Memo also uncovered more instances of Akin being callous to rape victims.
Back in 1991, as a state legislator, Akin voted for an anti-marital-rape law, but only after questioning whether it might be misused “in a real messy divorce as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband,” according to a May 1 article that year in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (via LexisNexis).
Emphasis mine. Akin ought to know that rape is one of the most underreported crimes, and attitudes like his certainly contribute to women not wanting to come forward. Considering that
he voted against creating a sex-offender registry, one wonders what his true views on sexual assault are.
Akin's anti-choice views also led him to praise an extremely anti-choice group in the '90s.
Given Akin's other extreme votes on his recordlike voting against autism services and child nutrition, I have to wonder if he's a misogynist or a misanthrope. I suppose one could make the case that he's an Equal Opportunity Hater but I would still lean towards misogynist given his seeming contempt for women, their health care and their right to choose for themselves.
Yeah, guys like him make Santorum look pretty moderate. I have faith in the people of Missouri to choose the right candidate, and Senator Claire McCaskill deserves all the help she can get to make sure that a extremist like Akin doesn't become a senator where he could do some real damage.
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