With four days before the convention, Todd Akin has become a thorn in the side of the GOP and Mitt Romney. Like the hurricanes barreling down on Tampa, the Akin story is building momentum and threatening to destroy everything in his path. There is an interesting back story that explains the motivation of Akin, why he will probably be a semi-major story throughout the 2012 campaign and the possibility of a surprise ending to his bid for Senator.

The comment Todd Akin made about legitimate rape has gotten a lot of attention but that narrow focus on his comment is obscuring a major problem for the GOP. Commentators have mentioned, almost since the start of this election cycle, how weak the leadership is for the GOP. There is no central core, no party structure that can steer candidates and the party past obstacles. After New Hampshire, it was almost inevitable that Mitt Romney was going to be the nominee. Some had doubts, such as Christian conservatives, but Newt Gingrich was too much of a loose cannon and Santorum never got the footing and money needed to be a real challenge to Romney. A strong party apparatus would have quietly removed both from the scene so Romney could work on defining himself for the general public. A strong leadership could have talked to the conservative branch of the party and assured them their voices would be heard if they followed Romney. Outside money influences kept both Gingrich and Santorum in the race longer than necessary, thus allowing a small fissure to develop between the hardcore conservative base and Romney.

No one ever imagined the base would bolt against Romney because there was no one with the charisma and money that could go against him and frankly, those in the leadership of the GOP knew the hardcore base hated Obama more than anything, so even a candidate like Romney was better to them than Obama. He’s not the ideal candidate, doesn’t really share their goals and to that hardcore base he seems to be in the pocket of the country club GOP crowd. Paul Ryan was a good choice in trying to make the base happy, but the difficulties now seen in that choice is Ryan is the VP, not the Presidential candidate. Beliefs that Ryan held which kept him as the darling of the hardcore GOP have been softened or eliminated because he isn’t at the top of the ticket. Ryan has been rendered mute because of his position on the ticket.

Akin has become the GOPs nuclear Al Greene with the potential of causing a lot more damage to the party than Al Greene ever did to the Democrats. You may remember Al Greene, the infamous South Carolina Democratic candidate that came out of nowhere and became the abandoned stepchild candidate of the 2008 season. Democrats across the country tried a number of scenarios to distance themselves from and discredit the candidate. Al Greene got elected as the Democratic nominee for South Carolina because party officials felt the Republican incumbent was too powerful to defeat and gave little attention to the preferred candidate for the nomination. When he lost by a large margin to Greene, Democratic officials cried foul, feeling Greene was a plant. For a generous description, in Al Greene’s first few interviews he came off like Forrest Gump’s slower brother. Ultimately the investigation concluded Al Greene earned the $10000 filing fee on his own and he was not a plant. The party ignored him and he did lose, but with close to 30% of the vote.

The differences in the Akin situation should give the GOP nightmares, because instead of a small town, simple minded candidate that got lucky because of confused name recognition in South Carolina, Akin’s won in a GOP primary with party support ignoring him and supporting two other candidates. Relatively very little money was going to be given to Akin in the general election and the attitude of the GOP party seemed to be a hopefulness he would win against Claire McCaskill but little support would be offered. The GOP underestimation of Akin, and frankly I feel it is a sentiment held by a lot of Democrats and pundits also, is a lack of understanding his true believer motivation. The GOP leadership has no motivator to persuade Akin to get out of the race. He didn’t get their support when he ran for office, and threatening to cut off his funds isn’t much of a threat if he never used them in the first place. Todd Akin refusal to get out of the race under pressure from many GOP leaders is giving him credibility with the grassroots base. As pigheaded and scientifically false as his statement was, he did what a politician is supposed to do in that situation. He apologized for making a mistake in the statement and vowed to continue his campaign because the people nominated him.

See, we can say how out of touch he is, but to those conservatives that have had to swallow their principles to candidates like Romney, having Akin stand up on his principles and soldier on with his head high is a welcome show of leadership. As many pundits have said, the position he expressed isn’t different from the platform the GOP just adopted nor is it different from what Paul Ryan had said months before. Akin walks the walk and talks the talk, and even as wrong as he and the conservatives are on their absolute position on abortion, his stance against the the leadership is a welcome sign among the conservatives who feel like they had been taken for granted by the country club GOP establishment.

With Huckabee and other conservative organizations starting to stand by Akin, he will begin to get the emotional and financial support he needs to continue his race. Right now the big question is who will cave? Most money is on the scenario that Akin will lose momentum and will either drop out of the race in time for another candidate to come in or he will become Al Greene and will end up as a joke and lose badly. Admitting I have the option to change my mind later on, I predict a long shot option. I think pundits, the GOP and the Democrats are going to continue to underestimate his support. If he doesn’t have any other ‘legitimate rape’ moment, he could slowly close the gap with McCaskill. The conservatives will continue financial support because he’s a rebel in their eyes. It is possible, barring mental gaffes, for him to beat McCaskill in an upset victory.

As I was proofing this for upload, Akin had a news conference and confirmed he was staying in the race for Minnesota Senate.