You Can Always Count On The Nixon Guy

In her latest Huffington Post column, my Diocese of Los Angeles colleague the Rev. Susan Russell (shown photographing me in 2011) writes that she was a registered (although not always a voting) Republican until 1992, when she heard Nixon ex-aide Pat Buchanan's notorious cultural war speech at the George H. W. Bush convention:

I listened with increasing horror as his narrow, exclusivist, fear-mongering rhetoric laid out a vision for what this country needed -- a vision that bore absolutely NO resemblance to the values my parents had raised me to understand were core to the "Grand Old Party" of my Republican roots.

I turned the stove down under the simmering green beans, told the boys to finish their homework and that I'd be right back. I drove the six blocks down to the grocery store where earlier in the day I'd noticed the card table out front with the "Register to Vote" sign. And I changed my party affiliation that day -- explaining to the woman at the card table that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow I was NOT going to die a Republican. And I've never looked back.

This is one Huffington post GOP elites must read, mark, and inwardly digest. Susan's wasn't the only vote Buchanan lost for Bush in 1992. It could lose millions more socially tolerant, fiscally conservative voters this year, too. With the Paul Ryan pick, Mitt Romney pinned his hopes on the theory that enough former Obama voters will abandon him over the economy that Republicans will win despite tea party selfishness and a platform that envisions women in chains. With Romney's minions having massively out-raised Obama's in super-PAC funds, look for this Karl Rove-inspired script in more and more gauzy, minor-keyed TV spots: Obama meant well. He did the best he could! But it's time to give him a break and try something new for America. Romney and Rove had better hope that no more moments such as Todd Akin's unintended spasm of authenticity will make it as easy as Buchanan did for centrists to glimpse the true heart of today's Republican Party.

Akin To Like Him

Mike Huckabee speaks up for the GOP's unmentionable man.

He's Mitt Me

Romney's broad agreement with the man behind Todd Akins' theories about rape and abortion.

The Real Ryan

Bush and McCain adviser Mark McKinnon on the Todd Akin crisis:

Hear that sound, GOP? That’s women running for the exits—and the big tent collapsing.

Mitt Romney, who owed the right absolutely nothing (as Richard Nixon would've told him two months ago in a ten-page memo), nonetheless pulled the big tent down around him when he let the tea party dictate a divisive VP pick. Rep. Paul Ryan's likeability temporarily kept casual observers and some pundits from appreciating that he's one of the most conservative figures in national politics. The dislikeability of his abortion and "forcible rape" policy partner is helping reveal the real Ryan, proving yet again that the gods of politics have a heart for justice and a sense of humor.

While I don't agree with Akin on much of anything, his authenticity is refreshing compared to a presidential candidate who abandoned the humane pragmatism of his gubernatorial years and a deficit-hawk running mate whose Bush-era votes helped add hundreds of billions to the national debt. If they lose in November, Republicans may one day identify Todd Akin as the unlikely prophet who helped them grasp what they had become.

What Rush Didn't Say Was No Fluke

On Rush Limbaugh's radio program this morning, a caller accused Rep. Todd Akin of having been paid off for torpedoing the GOP's chances to win back the U.S. Senate and perhaps even the presidency. Referring to Akin's theories about rape and abortion, the caller said, "Nobody believes that." Limbaugh replied, "I'm not sure nobody believes it" -- and then stopped. He said he had to go to a top-of-the-hour break and mumbled that it was probably better that he was being interrupted.

According to news reports, Limbaugh calls Akin's comments stupid and says that he hopes the congressman will do the right thing and quit his Senate race against the Democratic incumbent, Claire McCaskill (D-MO). I didn't listen to any more of his show today -- while driving I sometimes flip around among talk shows on KFI, KRLA, and KPCC -- so I don't know if he finished his thought about the prevalence of Akin's views.

One can't help wondering what he might have said. Mitt Romney, for instance, has accepted the support of an anti-abortion activist who believes, just as Akin does, that women's bodies have the power to terminate pregnancies that result from what Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate, and others call "forcible rape" (Akin's term was "legitimate rape"). Akin, Ryan, the GOP platform committee, and 20% of the American people want to make all abortion illegal without exceptions for rape or incest. They fear that in the pre-1920 conditions they envision for American women, those wanting or needing an abortion would lie and claim to have been raped.

So Limbaugh's right: Some people do believe as Akin does, and they're pretty powerful. Expressing the rest of whatever had bubbled to his lips might well have contributed to what Akin's critics seem to fear most: Voters realizing he's not an outlier. As an opponent of women's reproductive rights, Akin actually stands neck-deep in the mainstream of his party's thinking.

It's not a debate the GOP wants to have before the election, since when it comes to women's rights, its mainstream doesn't conjoin with the national mainstream. They're not even in the same time zone. Many conservatives still have trouble understanding that women (and a considerable number of men) won't let government dictate to them about abortion. The hard work of reducing the number of abortions instead requires the broad availability of sex education and birth control, gently encouraging women (think tax breaks and free college tuition) to carry unwanted babies to term and give them up for adoption, and better teaching and preaching about sex's sanctity and awe-inspiring generative power. But as long as Republicans insist that the way to battle abortion is to put women back in chains (thanks for that image, Joe Biden), Todd Akin is the poster boy they deserve.

You Say Legitimate. We Say Forcible.

Let's call the whole thing off, Republicans beg Rep. Todd Akin, who's running for Senate. They protest way too much. Hendrik Hertzberg details the similarities between his and Rep. Paul Ryan's views and policies:

Last year, Todd Akin and Paul Ryan were co-sponsors of a bill that would have specified a pregnancy resulting from “forcible rape” as the only kind that Medicaid or a health savings account could pay to end. A middle-school girl impregnated by her uncle or a sophomore coed subjected to the carnal aggressions of fraternity boys after a night of binge drinking would have to settle for the comfort of being told that her rape, like the baby the GOP would oblige her to have, was illegitimate.

The Honest Man

Rep. Todd Akin, GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate in Missouri, is in hot water with Republicans everywhere for saying that women's bodies have a secret plan for ending pregnancies that result from "legitimate" rapes (which he evidently distinguishes from falsely alleged or statutory rapes).

On the purely substantive level, it's hard to understand why they're so upset. He probably didn't come up with his weird theories by himself. It appears that he cribbed them from anti-abortion zealot Jack C. Willke, whose political support Mitt Romney has welcomed. From a practical policy perspective, Akin's position is indistinguishable from that of his party's platform writers and Romney's putative running mate, Paul Ryan. Along with 20% of the American people, Akin and Ryan and the Republican platform committee want to criminalize all abortion, including in the case of rape.

It's not the issue those now controlling the GOP want to talk about during elections. It's merely the policy they want to adopt while in office. They're mad at Akin for outing them. He should stay in the race and keep them honest.