Missouri conservatives are angry at the Republican Party 'establishment' for abandoning Todd Akin. Akin's latest small-donor fundraising drive online has netted $100,000 in two days.
Todd Akin, Republican candidate for U.S. Senator from Missouri, takes a question from the audience after speaking at the Missouri Farm Bureau in Jefferson City, Mo. After his 'legitimate rape' comment, Akin has fallen behind by 10 points in the polls.
(AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Christian Gooden)
EnlargeMissouri conservatives say they are rallying around U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin despite his controversial comments about rape because they are outraged that "establishment" Republican Party leaders tried to railroad him out of the race.
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A backlash has set in here in Akin's suburban St. Louis congressional district, where supporters said the national party had no right to attempt to force out a duly-elected candidate.
Backers described Akin as the "real deal," a politician fiercely committed to their social causes such as opposition to abortion, and to the Tea Party drive to downsize government.
Akin, 65, has defied widespread calls, including from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, to step aside after he said women's bodies have natural defenses against pregnancy from "legitimate rape." The uproar knocked Romney's campaign off message days before the Republican convention, and major party paymasters pulled millions in campaign advertising for Akin.
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The gaffe has put at risk what was considered a likely Republican pickup of a Democratic-held seat in a state becoming more conservative. Republicans need a net gain of four seats in the November election to ensure they gain a Senate majority.
"At first I felt (Akin's comments) were offensive to women and insulting to my intelligence," said Lisa Payne-Naeger, a member of the conservative Missouri Grassroots Coalition, who has an online political radio show. "What changed it for me was the Republican establishment's effort to chop him off at the knees and install one of their own in the race."
Payne-Naeger said she was so angered by the "onslaught" from party leaders that she donated to Akin's campaign on Wednesday.
Nearly two dozen Missouri Republicans interviewed on Wednesday and Thursday, most in the St. Louis area, but some in other parts of the state, expressed similar views.
Akin has seized on this theme, launching a "Help Todd Fight Back Against the Party Bosses" fundraising drive that his campaign said netted $100,000 in small donations this week.
Holding onto the Republican base of support is key to Akin's political survival, although he faces more major obstacles to defeating Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill in November.
A poll by Republican group Rasmussen Reports released on Thursday gave McCaskill a 10-point lead over Akin, whose lead in other polls was as much as 11 points before the rape comments.
"Akin faces more of an uphill race now," said Jay Dow, a political scientist at the University of Missouri in Columbia. "The question is whether moderate Republicans will turn out."
"THE REAL DEAL"
Throughout his career as a state representative elected in 1988 and then as a Congressman, Akin has been a staunch Christian and social conservative who has fought abortion and promoted the right to gun ownership.
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