Our 2012 campaign reporter, Benjy Sarlin, is answering your questions now in a Live Chat at TPMPrime.
Barney Frank joins us for a Live Chat at TPMPrime at 1pm EST. Get your questions in now.
The Indiana Senate race was already extremely close, notwithstanding Indiana’s remaining a pretty red state in most regards. Now with Richard Mourdock’s comments about God and rape Democrats are piling on and a number of Republicans are running for cover, either disagreeing with Mourdock’s comments or denouncing them more fulsomely. (Interestingly, Sen. John Cornyn, head of the Republicans senate campaign committee, is defending Mourdock.) Read More
Greetings. A big day of Live Chats at TPMPrime. I want to flag them for everyone in advance.
At noon EST, Professor Rick Hasen will join us. He is a nationally-recognized expert in election law and campaign finance regulation, and co-authored a leading casebook on election law. For our purposes, he’s the leading expert as far as I’m concerned on vote fraud and voter suppression.
At 1pm EST, Congressman Barney Frank will host a live chat.
And then at 2pm EST, our very own Benjy Sarlin will host a chat. Benjy is on of our two lead 2012 campaign reporters.
Pennsylvania Senate candidate Tom Smith apparently missed the boat with his own rape comments. Commenting on the horror of rape, Smith said he knew how bad it was since he experienced something similar.
“I lived something similar to that with my own family,” Smith said. He then described his daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy — from consensual sex.
“She chose life, and I commend her for that. She knew my views but fortunately for me … she chose the way I thought. Now don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t rape.”
Smith affirmed that he believed his daughter’s pregnancy from consensual sex was similar to a rape. “Put yourself in a father’s position, yes, I mean it is similar.”
As we contemplate the political ramifications of Richard Mourdock’s comments on rape pregnancy in this current hot house environment, let’s step back for a moment and consider what he said. Read More