Is Todd Akin Mainstream? McCaskill Ad

On August 10th, Senator Claire McCaskill released this ad against opponent Representative Todd Akin. The ad addresses three issues on which McCaskill feels Akin's position is against the grain of the common Missourian. Her ad quotes Todd as saying that he wants to privatize social security, abolish minimum wage, and calls student loans the equivalent of stage 3 cancer. But does Todd Akin really believe in these statements?

1) Representative Akin has multiple times come out against the governmental program of Social Security. The ad quoted Todd Akin from a C-SPAN interview in March of last year, here is the full text: "Now, Social Security through the years, for many, many people, has been a terrible investment. It's really a tax, that's all it is. Social Security is a tax. The government has taken the tax. There's been more money coming in than going out. And we spend it. That's not been responsible. I don't like it. I didn't design Social Security. It actually came from Bismarck, FDR put it in place."

 No doubt that Akin wants to privatize social security for youth, and eventually move it away from a government program. But we are going to leave it up to you to decide if that is a good thing or not.

2) In 2007, Congress enacted the FairMinimum Wage Act, an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The act would gradually increase the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour. The federal minimum wage was increased in three increments, with the final increment taking effect in 2009.
The act was passed with 315 votes in the U.S. House of Representatives. One hundred sixteen representatives voted against the measure, including Representative Todd Akin. Akin joined Representatives Sam Graves and Roy Blunt, of the 6^th and 7^th Missouri districts, respectively, in rejecting the act. 

Representative Akin has not explicitly stated that he wants to abolish minimum wage, but he has voted against raising it in multiple measures, indicating his opposition to the federal minimum wage.

MO College Republican Debates in April, Akin is on the left

3) There is no denying that Todd Akin is not a fan of the Department of Education. He has actually advocated its dissolution. During the Missouri College Republican Senate Candidate Debate in April of this year, Akin was quoted (truthfully) as saying "we have the stage 3 of socialism in this country", on the subject of student loans. He has the cure for this cancer too, he said in an interview in Sedalia, MO: Get the Government out of loans, and make it a private issue. He wants banks and financial institutions to be competitive in the market of student loans instead of having the government involved.

So, Claire McCaskill had a great batting average here, getting both social security and student loans 100% right. There is a little wiggle room with how truthful she is about Todd Akin's stance on minimum wage, but we don't see her as being so far off base that we got to smack her down for it. So with the tiniest grain of salt, you can take this ad to be 100% truthful.