* Conservatives see Akin as one of their own
* Fundraising drive focuses on “party bosses”
* Akin says he’ll stay in race — and win
(Adds Akin comments, paragraphs 11-12)
By Nick Carey
ST CHARLES, Mo., Aug 24 (Reuters) – Missouri conservatives
say they are rallying around U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin
despite his controversial comments about rape because they are
outraged that “establishment” Republican Party leaders tried to
railroad him out of the race.
A backlash has set in here in Akin’s suburban St. Louis
congressional district, where supporters said the national party
had no right to attempt to force out a duly-elected candidate.
Backers described Akin as the “real deal,” a politician
fiercely committed to their social causes such as opposition to
abortion, and to the Tea Party drive to downsize government.
Akin, 65, has defied widespread calls, including from
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, to step aside
after he said women’s bodies have natural defenses against
pregnancy from “legitimate rape.”
The uproar knocked Romney’s campaign off message days before
the Republican National Convention, and major party paymasters
pulled millions of dollars in campaign advertising for Akin.
The gaffe has put at risk what was considered a likely
Republican pickup of a Democratic-held seat in a state becoming
more conservative. Republicans need a net gain of four seats in
the November election to ensure they gain a Senate majority.
“At first I felt (Akin’s comments) were offensive to women
and insulting to my intelligence,” said Lisa Payne-Naeger, a
member of the conservative Missouri Grassroots Coalition, who
has an online political radio show. “What changed it for me was
the Republican establishment’s effort to chop him off at the
knees and install one of their own in the race.”
Payne-Naeger said she was so angered by the “onslaught” from
party leaders that she donated to Akin’s campaign on Wednesday.
Nearly two dozen Missouri Republicans interviewed on
Wednesday and Thursday, most of them in the St. Louis area but
some in other parts of the state, expressed similar views.
Akin has seized on this theme, launching a “Help Todd Fight
Back Against the Party Bosses” fundraising drive that his
campaign said netted $100,000 in small donations this week.
On Friday he vowed to stay in the race until election day on
Nov. 6 — and win.
“I may not be the favorite candidate of some people within
the Republican establishment, but the voters made a decision and
this is an election, it’s not a selection,” he said at a news
conference.
Holding on to the Republican base of support is key to
Akin’s political survival, although he faces more major
obstacles to defeating Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill in
November.
A poll by Republican group Rasmussen Reports released on
Thursday gave McCaskill a 10-point lead over Akin, whose lead in
other polls was as much as 11 points before the rape comments.
“Akin faces more of an uphill race now,” said Jay Dow, a
political scientist at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
“The question is whether moderate Republicans will turn out.”
‘THE REAL DEAL’
Throughout his career as a state representative elected in
1988 and then as a congressman, Akin has been a staunch
Christian and social conservative who has fought abortion and
promoted the right to gun ownership.
“Todd Akin is firmly grounded in his Christian beliefs,”
said Kenneth Williams, Republican committee chairman for Sainte
Genevieve County, who said he gave $100 to Akin’s campaign on
Wednesday. “He’s the real deal.”
The congressman’s stand on fiscal issues and willingness to
buck the party line — he voted against the unpopular 2008 bank
bailout and against President George W. Bush’s education reform
known as No Child Left Behind — has also endeared him to the
anti-establishment Tea Party movement.
“Akin has real Tea Party credentials,” said Bill Hennessy,
founder of the St. Louis Tea Party, who lives in Akin’s district
and has voted for him since 2000.
Hennessy recalled Akin was the only politician who showed up
at the group’s April 15, 2009, “Tax Day” rally in downtown St.
Louis and adhered to an order not to do any politicking.
Akin’s ability to straddle America’s two main brands of
conservatism — fiscal and social — enabled him to garner
enough support from Christian conservatives and Tea Party
adherents in the Aug. 7 Republican Senate primary to win by 6
points.
Anyone who thinks the congressman may yet exit the race does
not know Akin, said John Putnam, Missouri state coordinator for
the national Tea Party Patriots group and chairman of the Jasper
County Republican Party, who has known Akin since 1984.
Patsy Liszewski, who described herself as “just a grandma”
and member of the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition, said she would
prefer Akin get out of the race.
“But if he stays in, I will vote for him and campaign for
him because our main goal is to beat Claire McCaskill,” she
said.
“I support him probably even more than I did before,” said
Molly Nesham, a home-schooling mother who also teaches at a
Christian school and likes Akin’s stand on abortion. “He made a
mistake and the Republican Party abandoned him.”
(Reporting by Nick Carey, additional reporting by Patricia
Zengerle in Washington.; Editing by Greg McCune and Xavier
Briand)
