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Tuesday, Sep 18, 2012 9:12 PM UTC

Akin’s push for women voters already failing

The campaign accidentally used a Dem operative's picture on its "women" Web page

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Topics: Todd Akin, Legitimate rape, War on women, Missouri, Claire McCaskill, 2012 Elections, ,

Akin's push for women voters already failingIn this June 11, 2011 file photo , U.S. Representative Todd Akin answers a question during a debate among Republican Senate candidate hopefuls n St. Charles, Mo. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Johnny Andrews)

Rep. Todd Akin’s (R.-Mo.) Senate campaign has something of a women problem. And his efforts to change that image are kind of just making things worse.

The campaign launched a “Women for Akin” vertical on its website on Tuesday, with the tagline “We think for ourselves.” It then promptly pulled it after it was revealed that one of the women pictured as a “woman for Akin” was actually a Democratic operative.

The picture had the headline “I’m a women[sic], and I support Todd,” but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the woman to Akin’s left was Corinne Matti, a tracker for the Missouri Democratic Party.

“I suspect they were so desperate to find women that they had to borrow one of ours,” McCaskill spokeswoman Caitlin Legacki told the Post-Dispatch. A spokesman for Akin’s campaign said they had not intended to go live with the webpage just yet.

The site had a video featuring women explaining why they support Akin, though it starts with a woman whose face is totally obscured in shadow. The video has also been pulled, but Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM has the brochure that initially appeared on the site, complete with testimonials from women in support of Akin.

 

 

Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com. More Jillian Rayfield.

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