If anyone should quit the 2012 race it's Gov. Mitt Romney, not Rep. Todd Akin. Even with the clothespin on my nose I won't be able to do it.
Romney should quit not just for the good of the Republican Party, but for the good of the nation. Surely the Republican convention can come up with someone better than this man Romney, whose political convictions are as uncertain as Barack Obama's biography.
Otherwise Romney is certainly going to lead the Republican Party to defeat in November, just like John McCain did in 2008, and a bunch of us who haven't gone broke already will promptly do so while the likes of David Frum tell us it's no debacle. Only in the Republican Party can conservatism be transformed from opposition to the welfare state in 1965 into support for Medicare as a matter of principle in 2012. And you feared Barack Obama would transform America.
The only thing Romney is proving in the case of Rep. Akin is that Republicans once again don't know how to fight, and don't understand how politics works.
Winning parties like the Democrat Party rally around their own when they are in trouble, and at the minimum do not make things worse for themselves by joining in on the criticism of individuals who make mistakes. A good recent example is Rep. Charlie Rangel who has been censured by the US House but is still standing, and quite happily so. Republicans, by contrast, have a habit of rushing at the first sign of trouble to distance themselves from members who come under fire, and end up isolated and alone, resorting to their own devices to survive.
No one but a fool wants such for friends. The voters can smell that smell for what it is: lack of self-confidence. And then they vote accordingly.
My hunch is Missouri will have a new senator named Todd Akin come November, and America will have another four years of Barack Obama.
We deserve it.