Stay in the Race!

One should probably avoid blogging about a contentious political issue while groggily on board the world's longest airplane flight from Newark to Singapore. Nonetheless, I plunge ahead, discretion aside, to add my 2-cents worth to the Todd Akin debate. For anyone who has missed the unwinding of a Missouri (my current home state) congressman's political career, Todd Akin, in the context of his campaign against incumbent Claire McCaskill for one of the state's two senatorial seats, made some extremely misinformed (some would say stupid) and possibly misogynistic statements about women, rape and pregnancy (just Google Todd Akin and scandal and you will no longer be out of the loop, unfortunately for you).

The stories currently in nearly every news source are about whether the Republican Party will be successful at forcing Akin, at one time its darling, out of the race. I think he should stay in. I think this not because it would be an easier win for McCaskill, who I admittedly support, but because I am tired of elections in the United States that seem to be between two closely similar candidates, each trying to woo the center of the electoral spectrum. With Akin in the race, at least the voters will fully understand the sort of world view than permeates Republican politics at the moment, and can have a clear choice when they vote. I see and hear little to convince me that he is that far from the core of conservative thinking at least in the US. All the better that we see the contrast in full relief, rather than as a blurred image the way the party leaders seem to prefer.

Maybe I can find a leadership theme in this mess to write about tomorrow. Maybe I just did.