Claire McCaskill Shuts Down Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/smays/3486183885/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Smays</a>/Flickr - Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Zuma Press

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Call her Comeback Claire.

Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill engineered one of the most stunning reversals of fortune in the 2012 election cycle, defeating Republican Rep. Todd Akin to claim another six-year term in the US Senate. At her campaign’s outset in the summer of 2011, McCaskill was largely seen as the weakest Democratic senator on the ballot anywhere in the country. But ultimately it was McCaskill’s gritty campaign combined with Akin’s eyebrow-raising comments about rape that sealed her victory on Tuesday and denied Republicans a must-win seat if they hoped to reclaim the Senate majority. In an interview with a local TV station in mid-August, Akin claimed that if the rape of a woman is “a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment ignited a political firestorm, angered women everywhere, and flipped Missouri’s US Senate race on its head. Akin later said he “misspoke,” but the damage was done. Powerful Republican groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Rove’s American Crossroads super-PAC, its affiliate Crossroads GPS, and other outside groups pulled their money out of Missouri. So damaging were his comments that a chorus of Republicans demanded Akin drop out of the race. Rove even joked about Akin’s murder at the Republican National Convention in August.

Akin stood firm. “The people of Missouri chose me to be their candidate,” he told ABC in late August. “And I don’t believe it’s right for party bosses to decide to override those voters.”

But Akin, like fellow rape-gaffe Republican Richard Mourdock in Indiana, never recovered from his “legitimate rape” comment. Despite regaining some of his political and financial support, he trailed McCaskill by 6 percentage points heading into Tuesday’s election in RealClearPolitics’ polling average.

McCaskill’s win, like Sen. Sherrod Brown’s in Ohio, shows that outside money isn’t so useful when it supports a weak candidate. McCaskill faced tens of millions in attacks from super-PACs and dark money groups—to no avail.

The Missouri Senate race marks yet another disappointment for Republicans. They were supposed to send McCaskill packing. But they couldn’t muster the candidate to get the job done.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate