Photograph by Scott J. Ferrell / Getty Images
“I believe as we stand on the abyss tonight, that those Americans who are wont to turn to God for answers, that this is the time to be doing that, to ask for His help supernaturally so that we don’t make this fatal step pushing our nation into socialized medicine.”
Rep. Todd Akin hasn’t gotten much national attention in the 10 years he has been a congressman from the St. Louis area, but he did get his few minutes of infamy on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart for this March comment on the floor of the House of Representatives.
The comedians had a good time with Akin for his having invoked a new “R word” into the healthcare debate, that being “R” for “the Rapture.” They called it “the ultimate Republican emergency backup plan” and gleefully explored how it might be implemented.
Great. Hometown boy makes good. St. Louis: Gateway to the Whacked.
Todd Akin is a funny guy, all right, politically speaking. But the real punch line hasn’t to do so much with wing-nut theology as it does with one simple and very strange political reality: The Democratic Party leaves Todd Akin alone.
For the fifth consecutive Congressional election year, Akin is essentially unopposed for reelection to his 2nd District seat. It’s a walkover again.
No disrespect is intended here to his ostensible “challengers,” including Democrat Arthur Lieber, Libertarian Steve Mosbacher, and the ever-entertaining Bill Haas, who will be making his debut as a Republican to oppose Akin in the primary election. This race is over before it starts.
Akin was first elected in 2000 to the seat vacated by Rep. Jim Talent, who ran unsuccessfully for governor. He beat a fellow conservative state legislator, Democrat Ted House.
What has happened since is nothing less than stunning, politically speaking. In his first three reelection bids, Akin was “opposed” by candidates who literally raised no campaign money. Zero. Akin raised $2.4 million—which he hardly needed—over the three election cycles.
In 2008, Haas raised $52,868, in comparison to Akin’s $966,369. That’s a ratio of more than 18-to-1, for those scoring this at home.
It’s obvious that the Democratic Party has written off the 2nd District as a safe seat for Republicans. This would be understandable if Akin were some sort of national juggernaut—say a Michele Bachmann—or if the district were so overwhelmingly Republican that any notion of a challenge would be futile.
Neither would seem to be the case.
For his part, Akin is the un-juggernaut. He is a career politician, having served six two-year terms as a state legislator prior to what will now be six two-year terms as a Congressman.
Perhaps the most remarkable part of Akin’s career is how legislatively unremarkable it has been over a decade. He has not sponsored a single piece of significant legislation in an entire decade in Congress, at least not one that has passed.
His signature bill was the Pledge Protection Act, which would have barred federal courts from considering any case involving constitutional issues that might be raised with regard to the Pledge of Allegiance (in particular the reference to “one nation under God”). The House approved this strange measure in 2004, only to see it die in the Senate. Akin has tried at least twice to bring it back, without success.
Akin has had plenty of success, however, in achieving conservative bona fides. The nonpartisan National Journal most recently ranked him the 23rd most conservative member of the House of Representatives (out of 435), and No. 1 in the Missouri delegation.
He consistently receives 100 percent rankings from the Christian Coalition, National Rifle Association, Eagle Forum, American Conservative Union, and other leading groups on the right. Conversely, he receives mostly zeros on the left.
Akin has never shied away from the wedge issues. He is especially passionate as an opponent of abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, gay marriage, and gun-control laws and as an advocate of school prayer and other public displays of Christianity. He was a strong supporter of the Bush tax cuts and of the war on Iraq.
As for Iraq, one instance in which Akin did garner brief national notice was in opposing a 2007 nonbinding resolution to limit troop levels in Iraq.
Said Akin: “Could you picture Davy Crockett at the Alamo looking at his BlackBerry, getting a message from Congress: ‘Davy Crockett, we support you. The only thing is, we are not going to send any troops.’ I am sure that would really be impressive to Davy Crockett.”
It turns out that few people could picture the late Mr. Crockett with a BlackBerry in 1836, but even fewer seemed to understand Akin’s sense of history or humor. (He made Stewart’s Daily Show for that one, as well.)
Whatever one makes of all that—or of Akin’s exceptionally conservative voting record and persona—it’s hardly the stuff that unchallenged politicians are made of. So what is it about the 2nd Congressional District that makes it so futile for the Democrats to take on Akin?
It isn’t geography. The district includes almost all of West County, plus large parts of South County and St. Charles County. It’s an unusually wealthy district, to be sure, but places like Ladue, Frontenac, Kirkwood, Ballwin, and Chesterfield are hardly known as hotbeds of the religious right.
Akin is a graduate of John Burroughs School, one of the most prestigious private schools in the area—if not the most prestigious one—and located in the district. But Burroughs is anything but the sort of place one would associate with a fellow like Akin, who seems to have placed his hand on the U.S. Constitution and sworn to uphold the Bible as a congressman.
The notion that Akin is unbeatable doesn’t seem to be supported by the district’s history, either. Even accounting for shifts to the right brought on by redistricting over the years, the 2nd District is anything but an automatic lost cause for the Democrats.
Talent held the seat for eight years before Akin, but before him was Democrat Joan Kelly Horn, who he unseated in 1992. The man Horn beat in 1990, Republican Jack Buechner, had been known as a moderate in the state legislature. And he was preceded by 18 years of Democratic domination under James Symington and Robert Young.
And before that was one of the last of the great moderate Republicans, Thomas B. Curtis, considered a staunch conservative in his day, but someone who would never be confused with the likes of Akin today. Curtis was a fiscal conservative who was a driving force behind, among other good causes, the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Imagine that, in Todd Akin’s religious-right district. No, history doesn’t explain why the Democrats never challenge Akin.
In 2008, President Barack Obama lost the district by a 55 to 44 percent margin, which is significant but not the sort of electoral math than renders a district hopeless. In Rep. Lacy Clay’s 1st District, for example, Obama won by an 80 to 19 percent margin. That’s a hopeless district for one party, and the Republicans can be forgiven for realizing it.
In the past two elections in the 2nd District, Akin’s largely unfunded and unknown opponents—Democrat George Weber in 2006 and Republican Haas in 2008—received 36.6 and 35.4 percent of the vote, respectively. That’s the base with which someone with name ID and funding would start. And the Democrats don’t even try.
Maybe this is a job for the Tea Party. Sure, Akin is one of their favorite guys, what with his unforgettable position on healthcare. And yes, to be fair, Akin opposed the corporate bailouts under both Bush and Obama, another cause near and dear to tea-bag wavers everywhere.
But what about all of those Tea Party signs and blogs and slogans calling for Americans to “replace career politicians with citizen legislators?” And what about all of the concerns about the federal deficit that are considered one of the key motivation points for the Tea Party movement?
Akin voted for every dime of the trillion-dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and every dime of the Bush tax cuts. The result is an undeniable reality: America’s national debt has skyrocketed more in the 10 years that Todd Akin has been in Congress than ever in our history. And his party was in the majority of Congress and the presidency for most of that span.
And hey, Tea Party faithful, there’s one other thing you should know about Todd Akin: He likes pork. And you hate pork, don’t you?
In the past three fiscal years, Akin has ranked in the top half of congressmen in procuring earmarks—a.k.a. pork—to his district. According to data from Taxpayers for Common Sense, Akin sponsored or cosponsored 46 earmarks totaling $157,696,000 from 2008 to 2010. That’s more than three times as much as Clay requested ($49,959,000) and also more than Carnahan ($147,321,500).
Akin has been a vocal part of a bipartisan congressional brigade (including the liberal Clay, as well as Sens. Kit Bond and Barbara Boxer) that has worked on behalf of Boeing, a major St. Louis employer and the second-largest lifetime campaign contributor to Akin in his congressional races.
Hate pork? Try this: Last year, with Akin helping lead the way, Congress gave the Department of Defense eight Boeing C-17 GlobeMaster III cargo planes that it didn’t want, at a cost to taxpayers of $2.2 billion.
Tea Party activists—like St. Louis’ rising star Dana Loesch—like to say they are allegiant to neither political party with their new movement. This could be a good test, seeing as how we all know what they’d say about a career-politician Democrat who would participate in such a porky thing.
Do it, Tea Party. Take on wacko Todd Akin.
At least you won’t be confused with the Democrats.
SLM co-owner Ray Hartmann is a panelist on KETC Channel 9’s Donnybrook, which airs Thursdays at 7 p.m.
