Todd Akin did not drop out of the race by 6:00 PM ET Tuesday, the deadline for him to drop out as Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri and have his party easily replace him.
Two minutes after the deadline passed, Democrats were already gloating at the failure of the GOP establishment to drive the embattled Akin from the Senate contest.
“Don’t be fooled by the faux outrage. This is not about principle,” DSCC chair Patty Murray (D-WA) said in a statement. “Congressman Akin’s substantive position on choice is the official position of the Republican party. This is about Washington Republicans playing politics with the voters of Missouri, plain and simple.”
Read the whole statement:
The moment Washington Republicans first heard Congressman Akin’s remarks their inclination was to defend him. They circulated his statement and encouraged the media to move on. Not until the establishment saw the political backlash and saw that this would hurt Republicans across the country did they change their tune.
“Don’t be fooled by the faux outrage. This is not about principle. Congressman Akin’s substantive position on choice is the official position of the Republican party. This is about Washington Republicans playing politics with the voters of Missouri, plain and simple.
“The Republican establishment has poured millions of dollars into the campaigns of Senate candidates who share some of the same positions as Congressman Akin. Sharron Angle said that forcing a rape victim to carry the pregnancy was making ‘a lemon situation into lemonade,’ and Ken Buck refused to prosecute a rape case because he said that the victims just had ‘buyer’s remorse.’
“No one in the Republican establishment is standing up today to protest the party platform, which forces rape victims to carry their pregnancy to term. If Washington Republicans are not willing to stand up and defend rape victims when it counts, they should not have a say when Missouri Republicans nominate a candidate who shares that view.
“This is hypocrisy of the highest order.”
