Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin is under fire this week for saying his Democratic opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill, is not “ladylike,” for comparing children’s health insurance to the Titanic, and for alleging that the National Defense Authorization Act legalizes bestiality. So, kind of a typical week for him.

But this, from Akin’s pollster Kellyanne Conway in an interview with the Family Research Council, may just take the cake. In attempting to explain Akin’s resilience, Conway pulls up an odd analogy: the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian cult compound in Waco, Texas:

I’ve expressed this to Todd as my client for a while now, I’ve expressed it to him directly—the first day or two where it was like the Waco with David Koresh situation where they’re trying to smoke him out with the SWAT teams and the helicopters and the bad Nancy Sinatra records. Then here comes day two and you realize the guy’s not coming out of the bunker. Listen, Todd has shown his principle to the voters.

Sure, Todd Akin is a crazy cult leader. But he’s our crazy cult leader.

(h/t Right Wing Watch)