The Anti-Sam Brownback Blog

[This C-SPAN interview will run on Sunday at 8pm and 11pm. My readers get it here first]

This section deals with Senator Brownback’s motivation for his Presidential ambition. Notice how he doesn’t mention abortion at all and only glosses over Gay Marriage with the “basic structures” eupumism. It seems like an attempt to appear sane. Don’t be fooled.

BRIAN LAMB, HOST: Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, why do you want to be president someday?

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK (R), KANSAS: To be able to serve the people and to be able to renew the society and the culture. There are lots of reasons why one wants to do something like this. And I haven‘t made a formal announcement or a formal declaration. I have been traveling to a number of the early primary states.

But at the core of it, I just see that the country really needs to renew its basic structures. We have got — I chair the D.C. Appropriation Committee, and we have got over — just right at 60 percent of the children born to single mothers. A child can be born in that situation and do well, but the numbers generally move against him.

And I think we have really got to renew just these basic structures within the society. And that‘s at the core. I‘m also an economic conservative. I push things like the flat tax. I‘m a strong proponent of the military and a robust foreign policy. I‘m a full scale conservative in that sense.

But at its core I think we have to renew the society and renew the culture.

LAMB: Can you remember when you first wanted to be president of your eighth grade class?

(LAUGHTER)

BROWNBACK: A little bit I can remember of that. It‘s — I guess the idea for me to be involved in leadership had an early impetus and I‘ve enjoyed serving leadership positions through much of my lifetime.

LAMB: What else did you run for besides eighth grade?

BROWNBACK: Well, I was class president somewhere in my high school class. I was student council president. I was president of Future Farmers, which for us in a rural Kansas community was a significant thing. Student body president at K-State and was class president of my law class.

So I‘ve been involved in a lot of leadership positions along. And I‘ve enjoyed it and I enjoy bring people together, solving problems. Some problems you never get solved. My daughter is at Kansas State University and when I ran for student body president I was going to start off with a parking problem at K-State.

And there‘s still a parking problem there. So she goes, dad, come on, you let me down. So those things happen.

LAMB: Where does this come from?

BROWNBACK: Just a deep calling within. It‘s not particularly part of my family heritage. My family, good, hard-working farmers in eastern Kansas and had always been there. Had not been particularly involved in organizations.

My granddad on my mother‘s side was a county commissioner in Miami County, Kansas. And we would talk politics once in a while. But it‘s just a stirring, actually, within me that I want to do these things. I think I can. I think we can get some things done. I like to get things done and move the country forward.