Power

Post-Election, Republicans Vow No More Akins

From now on, they'll make sure their candidates are much quieter about their plans to ensure women lose their reproductive rights.

Photo: Salon.

The GOP will have you know that they get it. Your message from the 2012 election came through loud and clear. No more crazy, loud, publicly open anti-choice candidates.

The era of Akin is over.

According to Politico, a fight is brewing in the Republican party as they try to find a way to bridge the gap between the favored Washington candidates who tend to be more electable but allegedly moderate, and the grassroots Tea Party or social conservatives who excite the base. For 2014, they may try to take a more unified approach, Tea Party Senate Leader Jim DeMint told Politco.

However, it might not necessarily be a matter of going with a candidate who has less extreme views. Instead, they may just be looking for candidates who are better at hiding their radical views.

After watching the Akin and Mourdock implosions, some conservative leaders say better coaching is in order, too.

“We need to do a good job of recruiting; our candidates need more training, keep their foots out of their mouth,” DeMint told POLITICO. “There’s a reason why most politicians talk in sanitized sound bites: Once you get out of that, you’re opening yourself up to get attacked.”

As we learned in the 2012 election, Akin, Mourdock and others of their ilk aren’t the extreme wing of the party when it comes to reproductive rights. They are just more open about their views, and less couched in their language. Even the Politico piece has Republicans bemoaning the lost opportunity of having John Brunner or Sarah Steelman as the candidate, ignoring the fact that both Brunner and Steelman are just as adamantly opposed to abortion in cases as Akin was.

The difference? They didn’t talk about it as openly to the voters. For the GOP in 2014, that is the change they are looking for.