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Health & Fitness

'Legitimate Rape' Theorist Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri Leads 'Wildcat' Sen. Claire McCaskill by 1 Point

The race is tied in Missouri's Senate election between incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill and Rep. Todd Akin.

Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) leads incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill by one point in the latest poll of voters most likely to vote in the Missouri Senate race. Rep. Akin is the 20th-century retro man who said that Claire McCaskill "came out swinging" like a "wildcat" in their recent debate. He characterized her as "aggressive" compared to her 2006 debate with Jim Talent when she was much more "ladylike."

DOH! (Republican campaign strategist Karl Rove smacks his forehead.)

Sen. McCaskill would not have a problem defeating Rep. Akin, even in Missouri, had she not billed her Senate account for flights she took in her family's corporate jet to and from political events. That seems unethical though it may not be technically illegal.

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As a result of the negative publicity resulting from that incident, despite her repayment for that flight and other political flights in a private plane owned by herself, her husband, and others, Sen. McCaskill would be further behind in the race but for Todd Akin's clueless take on women and rape in America. According to Akin, there's "legitimate rape," which I guess is rape that he thinks is rape versus the legal definition of rape. According to Akin, women's reproductive systems apparently can "shut that whole thing down" and prevent conception in the case of a "legitimate rape."

One would have thought that Akin would stop there and back out of the race. Not a bit of it. Akin refused. So now some Republicans, including former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former Sen. Rick Santorum, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-So. Ca.) have decided to support Rep. Akin.

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Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), a potential presidential aspirant, flatly refused to support Rep. Todd Akin on ABC's "This Week" recently. He wasn't going to put that albatross around his neck.

Will Akin prevail over McCaskill? In a strong indictment of Missouri, the race is a toss-up. Akin might even be slightly ahead. A clueless dinosaur with one foot in the grave and the other foot in his mouth, a man who opposed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and believes that employers should have the "freedom" to pay women less than men for the same work versus a dynamic woman with perhaps questionable ethics who used to prosecute rapists and worked with rape victims.

Hmmm . . . . Who would you pick?

I'd have to pick Sen. Claire McCaskill, though it's my personal opinion that she lied when she helped cover up then Sen. Obama's snub of Sen. Hillary Clinton on the Senate floor by agreeing with Obama that he was answering McCaskill's question. The photo of the moment in question shows Sen. McCaskill looking away from both Sens. Obama and Clinton and not talking to anyone. 

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