Todd Akin complained in the New York Times this week that Claire McCaskill’s campaign is “trying to make me look like some kind of a weirdo or something.” But as a former Democratic senator from Missouri might have said, McCaskill is just telling the truth about Akin, and he thinks it’s weird.
If you needed any more evidence of Akin the weirdo (his words, not mine), consider his remarks as a state representative in opposition to riverboat gambling. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in February 1994 that Akin and his colleague Stephen Banton warned on the floor of the Missouri House that “riverboats would lead to gambling addiction, battered spouses, broken homes, organized crime, poverty, suicides and child abuse.”
That’s a rather thorough list, but Akin wasn’t done. Akin warned that if gambling addiction rose just 1%, “50,000 thieves will be turned loose on our streets.” “When we have the smell of money, we run after it like dogs in heat,” he continued.
The Post-Dispatch reporter then added this hilarious, and rather telling, detail: “[House Speaker] Griffin had to call the House to order because so many members were talking to each other while Banton and Akin were speaking.” In other words, Akin’s colleagues knew better than to take him seriously all the way back in 1994.
If you thought those comments were overwrought, just wait. NPR caught up with Akin in July 1998 to talk about those sinful riverboats.
Remarkably, Akin managed to work his favorite topic – rape – into his criticism of the gambling industry:
COLLISON: Gambling opponent and state legislator Todd Akin has his response already prepared.
AKIN: I would hope that we would send a very bad message to any industry that wants to come in and use big dollars to rape our Constitution. If we want to change it, there’s a process to do that, and that of course is coming up in November.
Really, he had that response already prepared? He hoped to send a very bad message to any industry that wants to rape our Constitution. That’s just weird.
Akin was right about one thing though. There is a process to change things in November.
