Missouri's Senate contest may reveal how conservative the state is : Stltoday

Missouri's Senate contest may reveal how conservative the state is : Stltoday

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"This is going to be a test to see how conservative Missouri really is," said Ken Warren, a political science professor at St. Louis University.

After Akin's victory, McCaskill's campaign stopped playing nice and put up a website, TruthAboutAkin.com, which skewers Akin for allegedly siding with special interests and taking "extreme positions" on Social Security and other issues.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee declared ominously that voters soon would be learning more about Akin, a "Tea Party congressman" who "has compared student loans to stage-three cancer, suggested that Medicare is unconstitutional and claimed that 'the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God.'"
Akin's touchstone is a loyal base of churchgoing conservatives who show up at the polls no matter what, a voting bloc likely to be unaffected by such attacks.

"That could work for him," Warren said. "The Tea Party movement is strong, and the evangelical vote is big."
Akin, a deeply religious man, has long been a favorite of evangelicals.

White evangelical Christians who said they are born again made up 39 percent of Missouri's electorate in 2008, according to exit poll data. That is 13 points higher than the national average of 26 percent.