Of all the GOP presidential contenders who could claim to have benefited from the recent midterm elections, Brownback may be the one for whom it is most true. For years, the social conservatives who brought down Miers have been having a fierce intramural debate on the merits of pragmatism versus purity.
In the run-up to 2000, they resolved that debate in favor of the former, and the movement threw its support behind George W. Bush over conservative long shots like John Ashcroft and Gary Bauer. But, now, conservatives appear to have the worst of both worlds: Six years of disappointments on issues like abortion and gay marriage have resulted in a midterm rout and a lame-duck presidency. Purity is looking more attractive by the day.
All the more so when you consider that the early GOP front-runner is John McCain, a man who still makes some social conservatives sputter with rage. If present trends continue and the Republican establishment embraces McCain, conservatives could choose to rally around a more acceptable alternative–that is, if they can find one. Lame-duck Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has already pulled the plug on his presidential ambitions. As of January, Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum and Virginia’s George Allen are both ex-senators. And, while Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney may have escaped the midterm fallout, he is Mormon–a religion many evangelical Christians regard as a cult.
Brownback, by contrast, is closing in on a decade as the leading social conservative in the U.S. Senate. He has impeccable credentials on issues like judges, abortion, and gay marriage. (And, for that matter, any combination of the three: He has threatened to hold up the nomination of a Michigan judge because she once attended a lesbian commitment ceremony.) And Brownback’s leadership of the VAT gives him extraordinary day-to-day influence over the Senate’s social conservative agenda.
There are crasser considerations, too. Brownback was an evangelical Christian before he converted to Catholicism. Iowa has large populations of both. Brownback’s home in Topeka is a four-hour drive from Des Moines, giving him as close to a natural foothold in the state as any GOP contender will have. And, as a long-serving state agriculture secretary and former Future Farmers of America official, Brownback is as fluent in the language of ethanol subsidies and biodiesel production as any politician reared outside Iowa. Put this together, and you have a guy who could theoretically take one of the top two spots in the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. With the Internet’s track record of making juggernauts out of grassroots icons, even a third-place finish could give Brownback an E-Z Pass lane straight through to the final stages of the race. If everything breaks right, and social conservatives are particularly aggrieved over their party’s standard bearer, Brownback could end up on the national ticket.
Brownback, in other words, is on the brink. He is savvy. He is righteous. He is committed. He would appear to have been born for this moment in politics. But looks can be deceiving, because birth is not at all how Brownback came by his place in the conservative cosmos. As recently as 1994, the year of his first campaign for Congress, Brownback was a member in good standing of the moderate Republican establishment. But, by the time he arrived in Congress that fall, he was emitting so much anti-government zeal he gave Newt Gingrich the willies. Within two years, Brownback had another epiphany, from which he emerged as a crusader for Christian causes.
Which raises a question for conservatives mulling a Brownback candidacy: Has the Kansas senator been finding himself? Or has he been finding himself a way to run for president?
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