A Democratic voice
Last month, a firestorm erupted when Todd Akin, a Republican Congressman and Senatorial hopeful from Missouri, made his now-infamous comments about “legitimate rape.” The reaction from the Republican establishment, seeking to quash any renewed talk of a “Republican war on women,” was rapid: Mitt Romney and others urged Akin to remove himself from the race — a suggestion that he refused — and sought to clarify that Akin’s beliefs about rape were not those of the Republican Party. To be fair, we should not conflate Akin’s ideas with the GOP platform (although Newt Gingrich was back on the campaign trail for Akin on Monday, and Rick Santorum offered his endorsement yesterday).