Romney Campaign Shuts Down Questions About Todd Akin, Abortion

If you work for a local news organization and you wanna talk to Mitt Romney, you'd better stick to important relevant topics. Important and relevant to Mitt Romney's poll numbers…

Boyd told TPM that the Romney campaign offered her station an interview with Romney, one of several local news hits in swing states that Romney conducted via satellite Thursday. A campaign staffer whose name she didn't divulge told her what questions she wasn't allowed to ask.

"They said, you know, 'the only stipulation is we don't want you talking about the Akin issue,'" Boyd recalled. She also said the Romney staffer told her the campaign didn't want questions for Romney about 'the whole abortion controversy.'"…

"I said to them, 'Look everybody's talking about this. It's going to seem awkward if I don't ask about it,'" she said. "And they said, 'Well he's said all he's going to say about it. He doesn't have anything more to say, you won't be getting any new information so we don't want to talk about that.'"

I'm of two minds on this.

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Tags: Abortion, Media, Mitt Romney, Todd Akin

Quote Unquote: Doggie Doo

Rep. Nancy Pelosi on Rep. Todd Akin…

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"[Akin is] the doggie doo on the shoe of his party, the tattoo on Paul Ryan that they won't be able to get off."

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It's nice to see that dog excrement has taken its rightful place alongside magic self-terminating pregnancies in our national conversation.

Tags: House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, Senate, Todd Akin

Todd Akin Believes He Has Legitimate Chance

Todd Akin, whom you may have heard of and who is terribly sorry for that, isn't giving up.

Despite criticism from his party, the opposing party and pretty much every American who knows what rape and/or basic goodness is, he's going to keep running for the Senate…

[Akin] believes the fickle media's attention will shift quickly, especially with party conventions right around the corner, and the race will remain tight given [his Democratic opponent Claire] McCaskill's disapproval ratings in Missouri.

Nice try, Todd, but the American media's not as fickle as you think. When an important news story breaks that could have far-reaching consequences for American women, journalists delve into it and don't stop until–

Hey, look, Joe Biden's talking!

Photo by Chris Maddaloni/CQ-Roll Call Group/Getty Images

Tags: Abortion, Missouri, Senate, Todd Akin

Our Endorsements: Jan Brewer Wants You to Deport Yourself

* Mary Steenburgen nails Jan Brewer.

* SNL election skit predictions.

* Hey, ho, where'd you go, Ohio?

* Republicans finally embarrass themselves with women.

* Little face Romney now matches Romney little brain.

* The internet has fun with Paul Ryan's Wikipedia picture.

* Harley Dear explains how lasers protect your ladyparts like in Ocean's 11.

* You can vote, but first name the French song Megan Draper sang to Don.

Tags: Arizona, Barack Obama, Daily Links, Funny or Die, Immigration, Jan Brewer, John Boehner, Mitt Romney, Ohio, Paul Ryan, SNL, The Onion, Todd Akin

Sarah Palin Has Some Things to Say About Todd Akin

Please forgive me. I know I should not feed the Palins. But I'm weak! I just love when she opens her mouth and things come out of it. Because those things are almost always very very funny.

Take for example this fantastic little piece of Palinalia, in which she simultaneously manages to gloat over the downfall of a Republican candidate that did not get her official stamp of approval and offer the most ironically unPalinesque advice ever uttered by a Palin…

"This is not going in his favor," Palin said in an interview with Fox News' Greta Von Susteren Tuesday. "So you have to step aside from self, from your self-desire to get in there and serve and do what you believe is right, and you have to, in a sense, take one for the team. And you have to step aside. Hand the mantle to someone else."

Palin's remarks amount to a big "I told you so" to her fellow Tea Party conservatives. The former Alaska governor  endorsed Akin's primary opponent Sarah Steelman in Missouri's Republican Senate primary, breaking with several major Tea Party groups who heavily favored Akin. Steelman, a former state treasurer, came in third in the primary with 29% of the vote, behind Akin and businessman John Brunner.

Okay, so first off, yes I know that she is uniquely qualified to offer council on quitting something that's only part-way completed. She's got that part for sure! It's that other part about stepping aside from self-desire and taking one for the team that seems somewhat outside her field of expertise.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Missouri, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Senate, Todd Akin