Akin Senate bid tests GOP strength in Missouri
Source: AP
Obama has more or less conceded the state to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Should Akin manage to beat McCaskill without the support of Romney or other top Republicans, including all five living current or former GOP senators from the state, voters will solidify that an already red-leaning Missouri has truly become a rock-ribbed Republican stronghold.
"There is too much at stake here in this election," Akin implored in an online fundraising plea sent heading into the weekend. "Today, let's show Claire once and for all that Missouri is going Republican Red this November."
To be sure, Missouri has been trending Republican for several years. The state Legislature, which swung to the GOP a decade ago, now has one of its largest Republican majorities in state history. And in 2010, Missourians ousted Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton from a seat he held for 34 years in favor of a Republican who had been the spokeswoman for a successful ballot campaign to engrave a gay-marriage ban in the state constitution.
Obama has made no campaign appearances and run no TV ads in the state. Yet political scientists have been reluctant to lump Missouri in the same reliably Republican category as neighboring Kansas or many of its new peers in the Southeastern Conference, where the University of Missouri now plays its sports.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/akin-senate-bid-tests-gop-strength-missouri-173749478.html
Obama isn't spending $ in Indiana either, he should not be wasting $ in states he narrowly lost in that he doesn't need (at least not this point). The party establishment will either put the $ back there when this blows over or they'll force Akin out.
