This election was supposed to be about economic issues, or at least that’s what Republicans wanted to talk about.

But Rep. Todd Akin threw a off-speed curve ball at every Republican facing either a difficult re-election or a candidacy in a swing district who wanted to talk jobs and health-care spending, not divisive social issues.

Maggie Brooks, the Monroe County executive who hopes to unseat longtime incumbent Rep. Louise Slaughter, was dealt that pitch.

Today she handled by trying to pivot away from abortion and back on to the federal health care law, knocking Slaughter for her vote.

And she dinged Slaughter for what she said was an over-the-top critique of her stance on womens’ reproductive rights.

“You have a congressman in Missouri who I don’t know making a stupid statement that I’ve already condemned publicly and you have a congresswoman, Louise, who has talked about the Republicans being Nazis and coming to Washington to kill women,” Brooks told reporters earlier today. “You know, that is exactly the type of rhetoric that people are absolutely sick of.”

Brooks insisted several times that she is a “pro-life Republican” but said she lined up with her party’s presumptive presidential nominee when it came to exceptions for abortion on rape or incest. She also pledged to “not stand in the way” of a woman receiving access to health care.

“I absolutely agree with that,” she said when asked about Romney’s abortion stance. “I’m a pro-life Republican, but I certainly agree with abortion in the case of incest or if the mother’s life is in danger or certainly rape. That’s not an extreme view and it’s something that I’ve been consistent about when I ran for county executive in 2003 and one that a lot of women — political people — criticized me then.”

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