people know that we didn t mean anybody or to take in any way rape, anything less than very, very seriously. but following that, i ve had a chance now to have run through a primary and the party people said when you win the primary, we ll be with you. they were with us, but then i said one word and one sentence, one day, and everything changed. so, now we re kind of back to where we were in the primary. i ve been so encouraged by good friends who are closer than brothers and realized there s a lot of other bravehearts, don t fit into the political parties exactly, and i believe the defense of the unborn and a deep respect for life which underlie all of america, those are important parts of who we are and they re not things to run away from. let me bring in our political panel, democratic strategist and republican strategist. chip, since we spoke 30 minutes
tampa, media will be there looking for a story, and it puts mitt romney and paul ryan in a very awkward position, if the party adopts a platform that is at odds with what they re saying on that issue and it becomes an embarrassment. last thought is this, every day we re talking about social issues, is a bad day for the romney/ryan ticket a good day for the president, i say. maybe this is a good day for women, maybe it s not the economy, but certainly something important to women and honestly, should be to menace well. shawna, as michael noted, the language that the gop platform could perhaps include, is the same language from 2004, 2008, which would oppose abortions in all circumstances, rape and incest. mitt romney would be the latest candidate following john mccain and george w. bush who stand against this language or at least who don t agree with it. let me play what wrnc chairman
start trying to do what he s doing, apologize, move on from there. not sure going on talk radio and talking about what is false rape, not sure what that is, but just stop digging. he s not taking that advice. he s digging deeper and deeper and bringing a lot of people if he s the captain of the titanic owe wants to bring the whole ship down. establishment leaders say you could hurt the party. he s thumbing his nose, thinking he could perhaps become a member of the u.s. senate. well, he s done. is he done voluntarily because he gets out or is he going to done at hand of the electorate in missouri on november 6th? the stakes for the gop, though, as you made reference to a moment ago, the platform. that platform has been a pro-life platform with no exceptions for rape or incest for the last several conventions but it hasn t percolated to the surface. this could be different because everybody s about to descend on
and it wasn t just people signing a petition. they were writing in. we got one note from a self-described conservative man who was incredibly embarrassed for his party, wanted us to know that conservative men don t agree or at least not all conservative men agree with akin and agree with the policy positions that put romney and ryan, frankly, on the same page as akin. i think that the fact that they this light is being shown brightly on what the actual republican party platform is with respect to women s ability to make private decisions for themselves especially in instances of rape and incest is going to be a problem for them, as they go into the convention. chip last word. what are odds that he continues to hang on and believe that his strength comes from something else and not the establishment in the party? i think he is trudging on. he s going to continue running this race. i will say this, the comments were incredibly stupid. he s apologized for that. if entry into the uni
that tried to redefine rape and something called forcible rape. that was the wildest controversial it wasn t because it tried to outlaw abortions in all cases of rape and incest, they tried to carve out and make a distinction between some other form of rape and something that they called forcible rape. you know, for most women, rape is rape. so, chip, does that stick on congressman ryan? no, he never said legitimate rape but the notion of forceable rape versus some other category, heilemann said it, you feel this kay w way the president said it rape is rape. rape is rape. nothing more horrible for a woman to go through than rape. they trial to lump congressman ryan in. is it wrong? if he co-sponsored legislation i think it is wrong. why is it wrong that he co-sponsored the legislation. i m sure congressman akin and paul ryan had 20, 30 bills this cycled they ve co-sponsored.