Can't imagine why

Jonathan Weisman and John Eligon have an article in The New York Times about the GOP:

Fearing that a seat crucial to winning a Senate majority could slip away, the national Republican establishment has unleashed a furious campaign to drive Representative Todd Akin, the party’s newly selected nominee, out of the race against Missouri’s Democratic senator. mid an uproar over provocative comments on rape and abortion that Akin made in an interview broadcast recently, the National Republican Senatorial Committee declared that it would withdraw financial and organizational support for Akin, including five million dollars in advertising already reserved for the fall. In the interview, Akin said victims of “legitimate rape” rarely got pregnant.
Crossroads GPS, a Republican advocacy group that had already spent more than five million dollars to weaken Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, considered the Senate’s most endangered incumbent, announced that it was withdrawing from the state.
At the same time, Republican candidates like Mitt Romney and Senator Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts either called for Akin to step aside or strongly indicated that he should. In a radio interview, the conservative host Sean Hannity pleaded with Akin to drop out. “Sometimes an election is bigger than one person,” he said.
But Akin said that he would not drop out. “I’m not a quitter,” he said on Mike Huckabee’s radio program. “My belief is we’re going to take this thing forward, and by the grace of God, we’re going to win this race.”
Akin also backtracked on his comments. “Rape is never legitimate,” he said. “It’s an evil act that’s committed by violent predators. I used the wrong words in the wrong way.”
He added: “I also know that people do become pregnant from rape. I didn’t mean to imply that that wasn’t the case.”
But Senator John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the Senate campaign committee, personally asked Akin to step aside, a senior Republican Senate campaign aide said.
“Over the next 24 hours, Congressman Akin should carefully consider what is best for him, his family, the Republican Party and the values that he cares about and has fought for throughout his career in public service,” Cornyn said in a statement.
President Obama, after weeks of steering clear of the White House press corps, stepped to the lectern at the White House to weigh in. “Rape is rape,” he declared.
The furor over Akin’s comments showed the sensitivity that social issues still hold for Republicans, as they seek to narrow their deficit with women ahead of the November elections, even as Democrats work to showcase what they portray as extreme positions by Republican candidates on issues important to women.
The strong response also indicated the centrality that McCaskill’s seat has assumed in the Republican game plan to retake the Senate in November. Republicans learned a difficult lesson in 2010, when impolitic conservative nominees in Delaware, Nevada, and Colorado fumbled Senate seats that Republicans had counted on, and allowed the Democrats to retain control of the Senate. Besides the Nebraska seat of Senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat who is retiring, no seat was considered a safer take-away than the one in Missouri as the Republicans look for a net gain of four to win Senate control.
Republican campaign officials said the coordinated effort to push Akin out of the race was in part a result of a tight deadline that the party faces. If Akin n drops out by 5 p.m.  onTuesday, the Missouri Republican central committee will be free to choose a replacement for the November ballot. He still could quit anytime before 25 September, but if he waits, his withdrawal could be challenged by the Missouri secretary of state, Robin Carnahan, a Democrat. Also, once the statewide ballot is printed, probably early next month, Akin would be liable for paying for any reprinting of the ballot if he withdrew.
While Republicans at the national level were in a hurry to shove him aside, Republican opinion had not hardened against Akin in Missouri, in part because of the salience of the abortion issue. “The congressman is totally, firmly, solidly pro-life,” Sharon Barnes, a member of the state Republican central committee, said, adding that Akin believed “that abortion is never an option”.
Barnes echoed Akin’s statement that very few rapes resulted in pregnancy, adding that “at that point, if God has chosen to bless this person with a life, you don’t kill it. That’s more what I believe he was trying to state,” she said. “He just phrased it badly.” Barnes said that she believed that the controversy would blow over, and that once people in the state became more familiar with Akin, they would learn “what a great, conservative, godly man Todd Akin is, and they’ll put his comment in its proper context”.
Well after his financial supporters had threatened to withdraw, Akin took to Twitter to declare: “I am in this race to win. We need a conservative Senate.” The post included a web link for donors to contribute to a campaign that was already running on vapors and was heavily dependent on outside support, especially from Crossroads GPS, co-founded by Karl Rove.
On Huckabee’s radio program, Akin apologized for the wording of his comments, but he did not back away from his belief that abortion should be illegal in all instances, including pregnancies resulting from rape. “I’ve made a couple of serious mistakes that were just wrong, and I need to apologize for those,” he said on the program. Akin had told a Missouri television interviewer on Sunday: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” suggesting that rape victims are rarely impregnated.
Akin was never the favored party candidate to go up against McCaskill, who financed campaign commercials intended to help him in the primary this month. Republicans feared that he would be reluctant to be too negative against her, and some also privately feared the very sort of misstep they saw Akin make, providing McCaskill with an escape hatch.
The Republican establishment largely lined up behind John Brunner, a businessman, and Sarah Steelman, a former Missouri state treasurer, who in turn attacked Akin aggressively. Akin does not believe he owes the party establishment anything, Republicans concede.
Democrats piled onto Akin’s comments, seeking to tar the entire Republican Party with an assertion that even many conservative Republicans called indefensible. McCaskill used national and state television appearances to press her opinion that her opponent is well outside Missouri’s mainstream. President Obama jumped at the chance to weigh in:
“What I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women,” he said.

Rico says the point is not how he phrased it, but that he thought it at all... (The guy's an idiot and, if the voters of Missouri want him, they can have him.)