The Republican Party and the Romney-Ryan campaign are reeling from two controversies that could affect not only the party fortunes in November, but also their Presidential campaign.
Republican Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite, Congressman Todd Akin, who is opposed by Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, declared yesterday that there was such a thing as “legitimate rape”, but that women should still bring the pregnancy through to birth, causing an uproar, which has led some to demand that the Congressman resign as the Republican Senate nominee.
At the same time, it was revealed by Politico that a group of Republican Congressmen, while in Israel on a “fact finding tour’, got drunk at the Sea of Galilee, and jumped in the water partially clothed, including aides of Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy, who are part of the GOP leadership in the House of Representatives. But Kansas Congressman Kevin Yoder, a freshman member, fully stripped and jumped in, and now there arr calls for him to resign, in what has been seen as a major scandal by many! Yoder also has had an incident with a police officer, who stopped him for speeding, and Yoder refused a breathalyzer test, and paid a fine.
It is not that Democratic Congressman or Senators, or other Democratic officeholders, are incapable of similar incidents, but that the Republican Party professes a “holier than thou” attitude on moral issues, and then becomes involved in such controversies.
It will be interesting to see how the extreme right view of abortion, that under no circumstances should abortion be legal in any situation, will cause a controversy for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, now that they have declared that rape is an exception where abortion should be allowed, in reaction to the Akin controversy. It also contradicts Ryan’s public stand in his 14 years in the House of Representatives! So we shall see how this all works itself out!