The most telling remark by Missouri Senate candidate Representative Todd Akin was not his inane comment about “legitimate” rape and a woman’s magic uterus, but his claim that he would not drop out of the race because of how important his election is for “the cause.” The polls show him losing by a large margin against one of the Senate’s weakest incumbents, and every major Republican from Mitt Romney on down has repudiated him, but Akin knows that he really is the indispensable candidate. He has “been called,” he says, to lead us.
The messianic ego that Akin is displaying has become all too typical of the political class. How often do members of Congress voluntarily step down? Republicans and Democrats jointly maneuvered to defeat term limits. Now even the self-limiters have fallen by the wayside, as legislators decide that they owe it to their constituents to hold on to their seats forever — until, that is, they decide to run for a higher office. Change their district, they will move to run in the new one. No barrier is so great that it can prevent them from getting back to Washington, where they can serve and protect us.
Don’t think for a moment that this has anything to do with a particular political party. Recall President Obama’s declaration that his nomination marked “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Ego is bipartisan.
Obviously it takes a certain amount of ego to run for office in the first place. No one would volunteer to go through the rigors of a modern campaign unless they felt that they had something important to offer the American people. And no doubt many current legislators are smart and accomplished men and women.
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