Just when you thought we had run the Todd Akin “legitimate rape” controversy into the ground, here come some more choice quotes for the grist mill. In the words of Michael Corleone: “Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in!”

Who’s the latest victim of his own poor PR “strategy?” Local press recently asked Pennsylvania senate candidate Tom Smith to weigh in on the Akin controversy–and he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. We can imagine his advisers cringing as he implied that a daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy is “similar” to pregnancy by rape “from a father’s position.”

Who advises these guys on conducting interviews? Do they not realize that more than half of Americans happen to be female, and that a large majority of them are not particularly receptive to such statements? And do their advisers not warn them against dangling such idiotic quotes before a hungry press?  If they really want to win election, they might want to hire publicists or trainers who actually understand these “issues”—how about some real-life women? Any volunteers?

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Our last post concerned the best ways to prepare for an interview and make sure that your client turns in a performance that is, at the very least, passable. But what if your client is, say, a prominent politician running for election who wants to avoid certain controversial or unflattering topics at all costs?

This clip is telling: A reporter from CBS affiliate KCNC in Denver, Colorado discusses the conditions she agreed to before interviewing Mitt Romney: no questions about Todd Akin or abortion.

We can certainly understand why the Romney campaign would make this request, and we have a feeling that related demands are common across the political spectrum, but the clip does raise some questions for PR pros: Read more

Missouri Senate candidate and recent PR Fail winner Todd Akin (expert in both “legitimate” and “illegitimate” rape) knows he screwed up—and he wants the voters of Missouri to know that he knows. How does he know? Because all those mean journalists just won’t leave him alone—especially after he ditched Piers Morgan and left the poor Brit to interview an empty chair:

The always-respectful newsman called Akin “a gutless little twerp,” and things are generally looking quite bad for the Senate hopeful. Top members of his own party have pressed him to drop out of the race and skip the upcoming Republican National Convention, but he doesn’t seem to be listening, and the following ad is his attempt to fight back and clear his now-infamous name: Read more

Even if you follow politics closely (in which case we share your addiction and we pity you), there’s very little chance that you knew the name Todd Akin before this weekend. Akin is a current Senate candidate from the proud state of Missouri, and he recently committed a prize-worthy PR gaffe.

Here goes: The host of a talk show called the Jaco Report (yeah, we’d never heard of it either) asked Akin to explain his opposition to abortion in every single possible instance ever, and the aspiring senator dropped this clunker:

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Wow. Akin just gave a big gift to his opponent, the struggling Senator Claire McCaskill. Read more