The senator says he will decide whether to run for president before the elections this fall and then announce his decision soon afterwards. Right now he gets one to two percent in surveys of Republican voters. His candidacy would have to be considered a long shot. But it would satisfy certain threshold tests.
Brownback, who will turn 50 in September, has executive and legislative experience, and is well versed on national security issues. Thoughtful and well respected in both parties, he is politically shrewd and a proven vote getter. Of importance especially to Republican primary voters, he is a committed tax cutter and free trader. He has supported the war on terrorism and championed the cause of human rights and democracy abroad. Outspoken in behalf of the need to appoint judicial conservatives, he was one of the first Republican senators to question the merits of the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers. Few Republican politicians are as close as Brownback is to leading religious conservatives, a key part of the Republican coalition. Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, says of Brownback, “Many have the right voting records, but he has leadership.” It’s not a stretch to think that the Kansas Republican could appeal to conservative voters in the nearby Iowa caucuses, which will kick off the 2008 primary season.
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Brownback’s voting record contains almost no surprises. “Yes,” to impeach President Clinton, outlaw partial birth abortion, phase out the estate and gift taxes, authorize permanent trade relations with China, approve the Bush tax cuts, permit oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, authorize the use of military force against Iraq, approve the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and confirm John Roberts and Sam Alito. But “No,” to enact McCain-Feingold, the campaign finance law, extend the ban on the sale and possession of assault weapons, and restrict deployment of a national missile defense system.
Brownback has spent much of his time in the Senate on life and family issues. Besides opposing Roe v. Wade, he has sponsored the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, the Prenatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act, and the Human Cloning Prohibition Act . . . . Brownback also has supported the constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman and thus ban “same-sex marriage.”
Brownback probably keeps track of issues of concern to social conservatives more keenly than any other senator. He runs the weekly meetings of the Values Action Team, attended by representatives of 30 to 40 organizations, including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum, Christian Coalition, National Right to Life, Prison Fellowship, and the American Center for Law and Justice. Brownback meets with no other group so regularly, nor is it possible to find many causes advanced by social conservatives that he hasn’t supported. Brownback’s deep interest in the social issues agenda was evident when I asked him what his big idea will be if he runs for president: “Mine is going to be to rebuild the culture and the family.”
Along with that, he is an ardent humanitarian. Brownback has concentrated on the difficult situations in Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, Uganda, the Congo, Pakistan, Ukraine, China, North Korea, and Vietnam. Arguably no senator has done more to press for human rights and democracy, or to confront the spread of deadly disease, such as malaria, which kills roughly 800,000 children in Africa every year. He has made a habit in this arena of cosponsoring laws with Democrats, teaming up, for example, with Evan Bayh on the Iran Democracy Act, Ted Kennedy on the North Korea Human Rights Act, and the late Paul Wellstone on the Trafficking in Victims Protection Act. According to his close friend and colleague Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Brownback knows that “if you get a few Democrats to work with you, you have a much better chance of getting something done.”
