Posted on 12/23/2006 11:00:44 PM PST by RWR8189
Sam Brownback lives closer to Iowa than any of the other Republicans likely to run for president in 2008. Brownback, the senior senator from Kansas, resides in Topeka, which is but a few hours by car from Iowa. And he plans to travel there quite a lot over the next 12 months--through January 21, 2008, the day Iowa Republicans plan to declare their presidential preferences.
Three weeks ago Brownback set up a presidential exploratory committee. That allows him to raise money and gauge support for a presidential race without actually announcing his candidacy. Brownback may decide not to run. But it would be unusual for someone to go so far as to establish an exploratory committee--John McCain has one and so does Rudy Giuliani--and then back out. (Evan Bayh is the exception to this rule.) Rob Wasinger, Brownback's former chief of staff and now his campaign manager, says Brownback will make a formal announcement within the next two months.
Brownback has been doing what likely presidential candidates do at this point in the preparing-to-run process. He's been working on campaign themes and their presentation, and also supervising production of a forthcoming autobiography designed to introduce him to a skeptical nation and a dismissive punditry.
A member of the House in 1995-96 and a senator since then, Brownback, who just turned 50, has polled between 0 and 3 percent in recent surveys of Republicans asked whom they'd vote for in a hypothetical GOP presidential primary. Two or 3 percent, however, is good enough for fifth place in those polls, and Brownback is banking on Iowa to boost his chances of winning the nomination.
Though the dates may move up by a week or two, Iowa will be the first state on the schedule of primaries and caucuses by which the GOP will choose its presidential nominee. New Hampshire will be a week later, and South Carolina a few days after that. As currently scheduled, these early contests will be immediately followed by Super Tuesday, when GOP voters in at least 10 states will choose their candidate. Brownback would probably not be on the verge of running for president if Iowa, with its peculiar caucus process, were not first on the nominating schedule.
The way the GOP caucuses work is this: Participants in a given precinct meet on a Monday night. If the past is any guide, more than 100,000 Republicans will show up for the roughly 1,800 precinct meetings across the state. These caucuses can last for hours, as participants state and defend their candidate preferences before voting, after which the results are phoned in to party headquarters. Caucus-goers like to be personally wooed by the candidates, and the process of wooing takes place in the small-group meetings held with candidates in the months beforehand.
Iowa is a state where huge media buys, which Brownback couldn't afford anyway, may not help a candidate that much. "You can't just walk in hoping to win by spending money on radio and television ads," says Kevin McLaughlin, a Des Moines stockbroker, president of Iowans for Discounted Taxes, and now a member of Brownback's exploratory committee. On the other hand, a candidate who does well in small groups can be formidable. And Brownback's backers declare that their man is especially good in that setting. "He wears well with people," says Chuck Hurley, a lawyer and former Iowa state legislator who is also a member of the exploratory committee. "He's optimistic, he's aspirational, he's comfortable in his own skin. The more people he meets, the more people there will be who say, 'I am really impressed.'"
Hurley and other supporters add that Brownback, who grew up on a farm in Kansas and served as his state's agriculture commissioner back in the 1980s, will have a natural rapport with the many Iowans who live in or come from the rural parts of the state. "The agriculture community will trust and like him," says Hurley.
Brownback plans to run as an unabashed social conservative--pro-life, for traditional marriage, for adult but not embryonic stem cell research, and for the appointment of judicial conservatives. Against the view that compassionate conservatism has run its course, he would embrace that approach to governing and include within it prison reform and combating deadly diseases like malaria abroad.
Social conservatives have constituted 25 to 30 percent of the participants in recent Republican caucuses, and Brownback is hoping to increase their percentage this year. Former Brownback chief of staff and informal campaign adviser David Kensinger cautions against assuming from 2000 "a static caucus population" and forecasts "a big spike" in the percentage of social conservatives in 2008, up to "33 or 34 percent." Should that happen, Brownback would stand to benefit. Candidates ahead of him in the initial polls would seem to be less attractive to social conservatives: McCain, in part because he declined to support the federal marriage amendment; Giuliani, because he is pro-abortion rights and also against the marriage amendment; and Mitt Romney, because he has changed positions on abortion rights (once pro-choice, now pro-life).
The Brownback campaign, in short, sees an opportunity to position the senator as the standard-bearer for social conservatism. Jerry Zandstra, an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church and political activist in Michigan and a member of Brownback's exploratory committee, is attacking Romney online for his views on abortion (as well as on other social issues), describing him as a candidate who is "historically pro-choice" but whose position "depends on the next election." Zandstra is also taking on Giuliani ("unquestionably pro-choice") and McCain ("B-plus" on opposing abortion).
The Iowa Christian Alliance plans to put out before the caucuses what its president Steve Scheffler calls "a comprehensive voter guide." The alliance, which doesn't make endorsements, may also schedule a candidates' forum in May. Scheffler says it would be the first ever arranged by "a faith-based institution." The forum could offer Brownback a chance to sharpen his differences on social issues with McCain, Giuliani, and Romney.
Brownback, however, doesn't intend to run only as a social conservative. The day he announced his exploratory committee, he told a Republican audience in Cedar Rapids that he saw himself as "a full-scale conservative"--i.e., a fiscal and national security conservative as well as a social conservative. Wasinger notes that in 2000 the conservative base in Iowa fractured, with votes going to Steve Forbes (30 percent), Alan Keyes (14 percent), and Gary Bauer (9 percent). "Most Iowa Republicans are conservatives--pro-life, for low taxes, and strong on national security." Wasinger makes the obvious point: "If Brownback can hold the base together, he'll do well."
Of course, Brownback does not enjoy the stature of frontrunners McCain and Giuliani, although Iowa is where this will tell least. Another concern for his campaign is money. Indeed, if Brownback decides not to run, it will probably be that the price of admission is simply too high. But assuming Brownback does run and does well in Iowa, enough money will come in for him to continue--at least for another week or two. That would be longer than many a fifth-place starter last.
Terry Eastland is publisher of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
Well, the punditry will definitely be dismissive, because Sen. Brownback is a conservative Republican. I wouldn't call the public skeptical, though, because they really don't know anything about him. Curious may be the more apt description.
Brownback is unelectable. Voting for him,thinging you are send a message, is really just another vote for Hillota t.
Brownback is a good man and is more conservative than Bush, but I think and hope we can do better.
Agreed - I like Brownback but really wish he, like most "conservative" politicians, would rethink his position on illegal immigration.
I agree, stay in the Senete Sam, we need you there.....
Brownback isn't just awful on illegal immigration. He's downright insane. He is very big on bringing primitive refugees here (Somalia etc) but makes sure they don't settle in Kansas, he would not get re-elected.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-40,GGLG:en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=Brownback+somali+bantu+refugee&spell=1
As you pointed out, he's also a strong supporting member of the pro-slave labor lobby. The United States, which occupies about 4% of the world's land mass and a similar percent of its population cannot hope to save the third world from itself by importing it here.
The best way to help the third world is to encourage it to throw out the dictators and systems which hold it in third world status.
All Bauer did the whole campaign was keep stabbing at Forbes' back. Even after Forbes dropped out. Keyes did run a positive campaign in Iowa; he didn't jump the shark until his terribly run late Senate campaign against Obama. However he never had enough resources for a serious chance to win Iowa; Forbes did. The result of the 2000 conservative fracture in Iowa was to wipe out George Bush's right flank, letting his claim to be conservative go unchallenged.
We don't want the same to happen again. Realistically it is probably already too late for a serious conservative candidate to just be starting for Iowa. Some had been waiting for George Allen and are grateful to Sen-elect Webb for removing their flawed hopes. If Brownbeck and Hunter really want to do some good they should work to enhance conservative behavior within their respective Senate and House caucuses. Show you can fix the dysfunctional GOP there and you'll be worthy candidates in the future. Of those adequately organized here, already only Romney is presenting himself as both a social and a fiscal conservative. Like Forbes, Romney is smart and well accomplished outside of politics. Unlike Forbes, he's blessed with good looks and charisma. (When a friend's normally sane wife told me she could never vote for Forbes because of "his thick glasses and bad acne scarring" I really questioned the wisdom of the 19th Amendment. Especially since she was telling this to someone with thicker glasses who treats acne for a living.) Let the rhinos stab each other while a conservative strolls to victory for a change. Keep the Gary Bauer wannabees out of the race.
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