GOP Seeks To Head-Off Future Loony Senate Candidates

No more of the likes of Todd Akin, please

Read their lips: no more Todd Akins.

In the wake of the GOP's Election Day beatdown, influential Republican senators say enough's enough: Party leaders need to put the kibosh on the kind of savage primaries that yielded candidates like Akin — and crippled Republican prospects of taking the Senate in two straight election cycles.

It's time, they say, for Washington bosses to be more assertive about recruiting and then defending promising candidates. They argue that it's critical to start enlisting local conservative activists as allies and to ease the tea party versus Washington dynamic that's wreaked havoc on the party.