BUT GOD FORBID THE DEMOCRATS SHOULD TRY TO NATIONALIZE THE ELECTION
(updated)

Another Republican religious rightist has doffed the sheep's clothing and said what a large percentage of them believe:

... tea party-backed Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock ... who's been locked in one of the country's most expensive and closely watched Senate races, was asked during the final minutes of a debate Tuesday night whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest.

"I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen," Mourdock said....

This is mainstream thinking on among religious rightists -- don't let them tell you otherwise. Here's Rick Santorum in January being asked by Piers Morgan to justify wanting to ban abortion in cases of rape or incest:

... I've always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created -- in the sense of rape -- but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.

Here's Sharron Angle in a 2010 interview with radio talk show host Bill Manders:

MANDERS: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?

ANGLE: Not in my book.

MANDERS: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?

ANGLE: You know, I'm a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.

(In a separate interview, of course, Angle lauded pregnant rape victims who "made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.")

And National Review's Katrinko Trinko says that Mourdock was impolitic but not wrong.

Mitt Romney has distanced himself from Mourdock's remarks. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has called on Romney to remove his recently released Mourdock endorsement ad from the airwaves.

But what Democrats rarely do is make a sweeping case that the election of any Republican empowers the most repellent Republicans -- Mourdock, Todd Akin, and so on.

Whereas Republicans routinely nationalize campaigns -- every Democrat is the equivalent of some hated Democrat (Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid now, Ted Kennedy a while back). In the right-wing media, Democrats in and out of campaign season are expected to be responsible for the words and deeds of ACORN, the New Black Panthers, Sean Penn, Code Pink, PETA, and Rosie O'Donnell.

Why not say that if you elect Romney, you risk empowering Akin and Mourdock, and you certainly empower dozens of Republicans who think just like them (like, say, Romney's running mate)?

It won't happen. Democrats occasionally say that voting for one mild-seeming Republican empowers scarier others (Elizabeth Warren has a good ad to this effect), but it's the exception, not the rule. For Republicans, it's the rule.

Yes, Democrats made a lot of noise about Todd Akin a few months ago -- but not since. How many ads outside of Missouri has he shown up in? There's the problem.

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UPDATE: Well, good -- as Dark Avenger notes in comments, the Obama campaign is trying to link Romney to Mourdock. Go here for details.