What we are seeing in virtual real time is the Republicans desperately flailing to save themselves in the 2012 Presidential and the various Senatorial races. Despite what we have been hearing in a Real Clear Politics article about Republicans eying other Senate races as their key to victory, the GOP still sees Missouri as key to a hostile takeover of the Senate as evidenced by two different Sunday shows.
Think Progress shows us that Mary Matalin, a well-known GOP operative, strongly suggested that the Republicans are looking at supporting a write-in or a third party candidate. I'll analyse the reality of this in a little bit. Here's the transcipt, keeping Think Progress's emphasis:
Matalin: We are going to win Missouri and Wagner is going to be our candidate. The party is going to get Ann Wagner in.
Stephanapolous: So you are just convinced he’s going to get out
Matalin: Or we’ll run a third party, we’ll run a write-in. We can do it. We have the money to do it. We are going to transfer the money. It’s not as easy. But it’s a good state for Romney and we will get it back.
Ann Wagner is the Republican who is running for Todd Akin's House seat(MO-02). As Wikipedia points out, she is essentially a Party favorite as she ran the Missouri Republican Party for six years, and by checking Wagner's own Issues page for her Congressional campaign there is no daylight between her and Todd Akin
Ever since that time, Ann has continued to support pro-life causes and is proud to be endorsed by the Susan B. Anthony List and pro-life leaders like Governor Mike Huckabee and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Ann believes that life is truly our greatest gift from conception to natural death. In Congress, she will fight for the day when abortion is not only illegal but unthinkable. She will support the Hyde Amendment to bar federal funds from being used to pay for abortions and will work to defund Planned Parenthood and similar organizations.
Emphasis mine. Guess who else supports Personhood and defunding Planned Parenthood? Todd Akin and Paul Ryan. Ann Wagner clearly hates other women as she'll take money away from women trying to get cancer screenings and contraception just to make a cheap political point with misogynists and forced birthers everywhere.
Given Ann Wagner's party ties and the fact that there is a perceived by the evangelicals(who support Akin full stop) push for a more "party favored" candidate, I don't see an Ann Wagner write-in campaign gaining steam among the evangelicals who strongly support Akin. Huckabee would find himself in a bit of a pinch as two of his endorsed candidates would oppose each other for conservative votes. Ann Wagner would also not have the kind of state recognition that Todd Akin has right now (I doubt many low-information voters know how the heads of the state party are or know that she was named Ambassador to Luxembourg[supposedly a place where Romney has money] by George W. Bush) and I imagine that Karl Rove and others would have to spend a lot of money just to float her name around in the airwaves for a write-in campaign as well as printing and mailing out stickers to attach to a write-in vote.
As an earlier diary on floating the third-party option for Republicans noted, the deadline for a third-party candidateto file has already passed.
Huffington Post also reported on Reince Preibus, the RNC Chairman, appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" saying that Todd Akin's insistence on staying in the race could cost the GOP the Senate. I am sure that Missouri Republicans who voted for Akin in the primary, and the many evangelicals that live in Missouri are increasingly resenting the national "Establishment" trying to bigfoot their choices. I have a feeling that in the next few years, the Tea Party is going to continue pushing against who they feel are "RINOs", and I see Lindsay Graham, Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell all vulnerable to Tea Party challengers come 2014.
The recent Mason-Dixon poll showing Claire McCaskill up by 9 is good news for Democrats and for McCaskill, who is a good moderate Democrat that we should all support. I would treat this poll as McCaskill leading by only a few points, and we should still include McCaskill links at the end of our anti-Todd Akin diaries(and really, anti-Steve King diaries should have Christine Vilsack links but I digress).
Here are the Claire McCaskill links:
Donate to Claire McCaskill
Volunteer for Claire McCaskill
Claire McCaskill-ActBlue
Link to contribute to the Missouri Democratic Party
Let's keep our Democratic majority in the Senate with Claire.
4:46 PM PT: Just for fun, I ran a check on the latest on Akin and Missouri in Freeperland. They are actually starting to think that they can take down Angus King in Maine like we "did to them in Missouri". Gotta love those delusional Freepers.
Also someFreepers quotes for an article today on Akin's poll numbers:
What a plan. Abandon the good guy on the field of battle and complain that he will lose.
What is it the RINOs keep repeating in regard to mitt - "you go to war with the army you've got."
Well, here's a chance all those same yellow bellies here to demonstrate a little consistency.
Good thing we didn’t have FReepers at Iwo Jima or we would have surrendered at sea.
Pray for America