Todd Akin makes it official. He's in to stay.

By Richard K. Barry

Pathetic. Just pathetic.

The crazy man running for Senate in Missouri under the GOP banner, Todd Akin, is staying in the race. You'll recall that Akin got in a heap of trouble by trying to distinguish between legitimate rape and that other kind. 

A bunch of media types showed up at an Akin's press conference in St. Louis yesterday thinking he might throw in the towel at the 11th hour, but that was simply not to be:

"I was given a trust" in the August Republican primary that put him on the ballot, Akin told about 200 enthusiastic supporters in a ballroom at the downtown Renaissance. "...A number of people have asked me, 'Are you quitting?'... I don't believe that is really my decision."

He added, to heavy cheering from the crowd: "I have a purpose going into November and that's to replace Claire McCaskill."

This won't make his own party very happy. Everyone from Mitt Romney on down pressed him to get out so he wouldn't do any more damage to the brand, but it seems old Todd is his own man. Stupid bastard.

How extreme do you have to be when this version of the GOP thinks you're too far out there?

It's a very conservative state, Missouri, and Akin could still win. That's true. But it won't do the rest of the Republican Party a lot of good to defend his Neanderthal views for the next several weeks, though I doubt it will have that much impact on the rest of the country.

Go, Claire, Go!

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)