GOP Holding Seminars to Teach Candidates How to Avoid Being Todd Akin
According to POLITICO, the National Republican Congressional Committee is holding workshops with top aides of 2014 Republican candidates to teach them how to avoid Todd Akin-like disasters when opposing a female candidate.
“Let me put it this way,” said a Republican staffer present for one of the seminars. “Some of these guys have a lot to learn.”
Akin famously sabotaged his own 2012 Senate campaign when he spoke of “legitimate rape,” an incident repeated a few weeks later by Indiana senatorial candidate Richard Mourdock, who also forfeited his lead in the polls (and eventually the election) following his own version of Akin’s comment. The GOP in general lost the female vote by large margins in 2012, and the losses of Akin and Mourdock cost them heavily in the Senate.
At least ten House GOP candidates face female opponents in 2014, and the NRCC hopes to stop these damaging statements before they happen. To that end, they’re meeting with aides on “messaging against women opponents,” which involves as much knowing when not to speak as massaging how to.
“Part of this is just warning them what can happen, and giving them some things to say so that they are not freelancing,” POLITICO’s Mike Allen told Morning Joe Thursday morning. “They’re not so good at ad libbing on these topics.”
Allen noted that the advice includes speaking on economic topics over social ones—and focusing on issues like early education when doing so—and highlighting their wives’ contributions to their thinking.
Watch Allen’s segment below, via MSNBC:
[h/t POLITICO]
