Romney calls on Akin to quit race after rape remarks

JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri

A row has broken out in the US after a Republican candidate for Senate, Akin, said he believed women’s bodies are able to prevent pregnancy in the case of rape. ABACAPRESS photo

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called on a congressman to abandon his U.S. Senate bid in the Midwestern state of Missouri, but the congressman has refused to heed calls to step down from Republicans who fear his comments about rape have threatened the party’s bid to gain control of Congress in November.

Rep. Todd Akin’s comments that women’s bodies can prevent pregnancies in cases of “legitimate rape” ignited a firestorm, but he continued to defy top Republicans as he ignored a key deadline to drop out on Aug. 21 and forged ahead with his besieged Senate campaign, the Associated Press reported.

Akin declared that his party’s leaders were overreacting by abandoning him. He was once seen as a strong challenger to incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in Missouri, a pivotal target for Republicans as they attempt win control of the Senate.

Republicans already control the House of Representatives. “I misspoke one word in one sentence on one day, and all of a sudden, overnight, everybody decides, ’Well, Akin can’t possibly win,’” he said on a national radio show. “Well, I don’t agree with that.”

Ryan doesn’t change the race: poll
Akin predicted he would bounce back from the political crisis threatening his campaign. “I’m in this race for the long haul, and we’re going to win it,” he told radio host Dana Loesch in St. Louis. Meanwhile, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows that Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate has not altered the race against President Barack Obama. Overall, 47 percent of registered voters say they plan to back Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in November, while 46 percent favor Romney and Ryan.