Wendy Long Stops Short of Calling Akin to End His Senate Campaign

While much of the Republican Party has been pushing Missouri Rep. Todd Akin to drop out of his U.S. Senate race after his controversial comments about rape, Wendy Long, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in New York, has continued to stop short of saying Akin should step aside. "If I had been in his shoes I probably would have done it, but of course I never would have said anything like that," Long said at a campaign stop in Buffalo this afternoon. "The important thing is that every person should think of their race in terms of something other than themselves." Akin's [remarks](http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/19/missouri-republican-claims-legitimate-rape-rarely-results-in-pregnancy/) that women who are raped rarely get pregnant, and that a woman's body shuts down in cases of "legitimate rape," has caused a firestorm and prompted politicians from both major parties to criticize Akin and call for him to end his campaign. Wendy Long wrote in a statement on Facebook that "all rape is real rape," the [Politicker blog reported yesterday](http://politicker.com/2012/08/wendy-long-compares-akin-rape-gaffe-to-biden-chains-gaffe/). In the statement, Long also sought to shift the conversation back to the economy, saying, "The real issue is jobs and New York's private sector isn't creating them." When told today that the latest development in the rapidly unfolding story was that Akin said on Mike Huckabee's radio show that he would [stay in the race](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-eye-tuesday-deadline-for-akin/2012/08/21/fcf695a2-eb8c-11e1-9ddc-340d5efb1e9c_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop), and that the congressman had characterized the response to his comment as an "overreaction", Long responded that "the remark was hard to understand." "Clearly, all rape is rape," Long said. "We should prosecute rapists and abusers to the fullest extent of the law. There was clearly no medical or scientific foundation to what he was saying so the whole thing was incomprehensible really. I don't know what was in his head." To read more from [City & State.](http://www.cityandstateny.com)