Todd Akin’s Rehabilitation Project is Now Underway

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


For the past few weeks I’ve been keeping half an eye on Todd “legitimate rape” Akin’s Senate race in Missouri. This is mostly for reasons of personal vanity: I want to see if my three-part Akin prediction pans out. Yesterday was the last day he could withdraw from the race, and he didn’t, which means that prediction #1 is now safely in the bank. Prediction #2 is that once Akin is definitively the Republican candidate, Republicans will grudgingly start to offer him their support. So how’s that going? Well, the head of the NSRC has now switched from insisting that Akin will never get a dime to saying that he will “continue to monitor this race closely in the days ahead.” Dave Weigel explains:

“Monitor this race closely” is Washington-speak for “maybe spend money on it.” Basically, Republicans bluffed and threatened Akin with a total cut-off because they wanted to replace him with a similar but less unpopular candidate. Akin, who owed national Republicans absolutely nothing — even Sarah Palin endorsed somebody else! — called the bluff. Now that the national spotlight has swung away, Republicans are looking for the least embarrassing way to help out Akin again, because it’s tough to lose Missouri and win the Senate. Today’s double-team Akin endorsement from Rick Santorum and Jim DeMint was part of that. So was Newt Gingrich’s campaign swing. The margin between Akin and Claire McCaskill is only as big as a $500,000 Super PAC check from Foster Friess or Sheldon Adelson.

Prediction #3, of course, is that Akin will eventually eke out a close victory.1 There’s nothing new to report on that front, though, since there haven’t been any recent polls in Missouri. But the RCP average has Akin behind by about five points, which isn’t a lot for a guy fresh off a major gaffe and short of money. Let a little time go by, and give his campaign a cash infusion, and that’s not an insurmountable deficit. Not in Missouri, anyway. We’ll see.

1I assume this goes without saying, but this is a prediction, not a hope.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate