Pema Levy:
McCaskill Hits Akin Over Rape Comments In New Ad: The Missouri Senate race kicked off in earnest Tuesday when Republican candidate Todd Akin affirmed for the last time that he will not drop his Senate bid at a press conference in St. Louis. Establishment Republicans have urged Akin to leave the race after an interview in which he said that victims of “legitimate rape” rarely become pregnant. But on Tuesday… he reaffirmed that he is in it to win it:
A lot of people in politics specialize in asking this question: ‘Can we win?’ But there’s another question that’s more fundamental and that is: ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ There’s an amazing correlation. When you do the right thing, you end up winning anyway.
Akin’s determination to stay in the race was not a surprise….
Incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill posted a hard-hitting TV ad featuring Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments to her campaign website Tuesday. The McCaskill campaign confirmed to TPM that the ad began airing statewide Monday night. Immediately following Akin’s press conference, liberal super PAC American Bridge released a video and memo documenting the “top ten crazy Akin moments.”
“On August 19, Todd Akin said, only some rapes are ‘legitimate,’” a narrator says in McCaskill’s new ad. “What will he say next?”
