OTHER CONTROVERSIAL COMMENTS

This isn’t the first time Rep. Todd Akin has raised eyebrows:

In April, he compared federal student loans to cancer. “America has got the equivalent of the Stage III cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in.”

In 2011, he said that “at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God.” He was commenting after NBC had edited out the phrase “under God” as the Pledge of Allegiance was recited at the U.S. Open. “I think NBC has a long record of being very liberal,” he said, “and at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God and a belief that government should replace God.” be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we’re talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people, and certainly doesn’t make sense to me.

“So what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health-care decisions on behalf of women,” Obama said.

Romney is against abortion except in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother; Ryan’s only exception is for the life of the mother. Obama supports abortion rights, and his signature health-care law lets a woman make decisions when it comes to contraception and other aspects of reproductive health.

The Obama campaign has been running ads in battleground states highlighting that Romney/Ryan want to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood. The Obama team has been portraying the GOP ticket as extreme when it comes to women’s health issues. So far, Obama is polling well ahead of Romney with women.

And Akin — whether he stays or goes — only helps.