SALON

Thursday, Mar 7, 2013 10:04 PM UTC

Will Georgia get its very own Todd Akin?

Republicans fear that the state's 2014 senate race is shaping up to produce another unelectable conservative

By

Topics: Todd Akin, Georgia, Paul Broun, Tom Price, 2014 elections,

Will Georgia get its very own Todd Akin? (Credit: AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Three likely Republican contenders to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia are worrying Republicans, who fear that the race will produce 2014′s version of 2012′s Republican senate candidate in Missouri, Todd “legitimate rape” Akin.

Politico reports:

The Republican primary for the open Senate seat in Georgia is shaping up to be a free-for-all, drawing interest from some of the most conservative members of the House and raising concerns that a race to the right could put in play what should be a safe seat. It comes as the party tries to head off the problem that cost it dearly in 2012: nominating candidates who say things so off-putting to mainstream voters that they blow the election.

Democrats acknowledge that Georgia’s rightward tilt gives Republicans the edge in the race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss. But they’re hopeful that a candidate in the mold of Missouri’s Akin or Indiana’s Richard Mourdock emerges from a bare-knuckled Southern brawl.

So who are the potential candidates?

  • Paul Broun: The only candidate to officially declare his run so far, Rep. Paul Broun recently boasted that he was the “first to call Obama a socialist who embraces Marxist-Leninist policies like government control of health care and redistribution of wealth.” Prior to that, Broun stirred things up by declaring that “All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.”
  • Tom Price: After the BP oil spill, Price, the former chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee, criticized a deal the company made with the Obama Administration to pay $20 billion in damages as “Chicago-style shakedown politics.” More recently, he denied that low-income women might not have access to birth control if the contraception mandate of health care reform is repealed. “Bring me one woman who has been left behind. Bring me one. There’s not one. The fact of the matter is, this is a trampling of religious freedom and religious liberty in this country.”
  • Phil Gingrey: Perhaps the closest model to an Akin, Gingrey said in January that Akin was “partly right” when he said that “a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur.” He added: “We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.”

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.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 6 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
230 points231 points | 13 comments
vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
213 points214 points | 156 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
196 points197 points | 30 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
80 points81 points | 16 comments
vote
Austerity Kills: Brian McArdle, a 57-year-old man who had had two strokes and could barely walk, was found "fit for work" by a government subcontractor, and had his benefits stopped. He died the next day.
51 points52 points | 2 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations