Todd Akin Has Till 6PM ET to Withdraw From the Missouri Senate Race, But Claire McCaskill Doesn't Want Him To, Obviously

Akin won a tight three-way race and is still tied with McCaskill after making asinine and ignorant comments about rape

On Saturday, Senate hopeful Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) said something idiotic even by idiot politician standards, concocting a notion of "legitimate rape" and biological defenses that prevent pregnancy that is just completely divorced from reality.

And while Republicans from Mitt Romney on down have condemned the statement, with Republicans as far as Scott Brown in Massachusetts calling on him to step aside, Akin says he won't. Missouri's deadline for replacing his name appears to be 5pm Central Time today. The seat being contested was once held by John Aschroft, who in 2000 lost to Mel Carnahan. Carnahan, who had been the governor of Missouri, died in a plane crash two weeks before the election. The acting governor indicated he'd appoint the widow Jean Carnahan, who lost the special election to fill the remainder of the term to Republican Jim Talent in 2002, when Republicans took the Senate. In 2006, Talent to lost to Claire McCaskill, the year Democrats took control of the Senate by holding on to all of their contested seats and knocking out six incumbent Republican Senators.

McCaskill actually ran ads against Akin in the GOP primary, meant to shore up his support in the Republican race by painting him as "too conservative." Akin won with just 36 percent of the vote against two candidates, the state treasurer, backed by Sarah Palin, and a wealthy businessman. Nevertheless, McCaskill and others spent nearly $2 million on Akin ads in the primary, and despite because of his outrageous statement, she wants him to stay in, telling the Huffington Post  "for Washington party insiders to come in and try to invalidate the votes of Missourians would be radical."

A poll taken by PPP (D) yesterday, after the comments were made and began to reverberate, show Akin with a one point advantage over McCaskill.

The effort to link Akin's comments to all Republicans has, of course, begun, with Republicans offering to help.

You can catch the latest on Akin at Reason 24/7. 6pm deadline in the time zone that matters!