lv travel insurance: GOP did, in fact, spend big on Todd Akin's behalf

Friday, December 7, 2012

GOP did, in fact, spend big on Todd Akin's behalf

Truth!

Here's me, back in August, arguing why Todd Akin shouldn't drop out of the Missouri Senate race at a time when establishment Republicans had vowed to cut him loose:

The NRSC and Karl Rove's Crossroads have promised to quit the state of Akin stays in. But the GOP's hopes for a majority run through Missouri. There's not much of a path without knocking off McCaskill.
In other words, the money will be there. As much outrage and disgust as they're dishing at the moment, they'll quietly open up the checkbook so long as the race remains deadlocked, and Akin promises them one seat closer to the majority.

If I'm Akin, I call their bluff and stay in.

Akin called their bluff, stayed in, and yes, the NRSC quietly spent a nice chunk of change to try and win the race.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee quietly sent $760,000 to the Missouri Republican Party in early November, just as the state GOP was mounting a last-minute TV ad blitz to boost Rep. Todd Akin?s sagging Senate campaign, according to records released Thursday.
The NRSC funds appear to have helped pay for the pro-Akin TV ads as he was struggling to narrow Sen. Claire McCaskill?s lead at the polls. The disclosure is highly significant because the Senate GOP campaign committee promised to abandon Akin after failing to push the conservative congressman out of the race following his August declaration that ?legitimate rape? rarely leads to pregnancies because female bodies often shut down.

The GOP undercut Akin for months and then did what everyone knew was inevitable?spend money to try and save what should've been a sure-fire pickup. However, that money was too little, too late.

Perhaps it never would've mattered. Republicans didn't abandon Richard Mourdock in Indiana after his similarly idiotic comments and he still lost (though not as badly) in a similarly solid Red state. But Republicans didn't lack cash. What they lacked was a path to 51 Senate seats as one candidate after another flamed out. Thus, they were never going to get to a majority without Missouri.

But NRSC chair John Cornyn backed himself into a corner and then proved that his word was dirt in a hopeless last-minute gambit to try and rescue a seat they should've won easily. And for what? To piss away a big chunk of your donors' money while proving that yes, once again, you can't trust a word that a Republican says?