The Anti-Sam Brownback Blog

According to the CJ Online:

Brownback’s office said the senator — considered a top conservative candidate for the GOP presidential nomination — “absolutely” will campaign with the GOP nominee for governor this fall.

That means traveling with the nominee and helping with fundraising, said Brian Hart, a Brownback spokesman.

“I’m sure he’ll get heavily involved,” Hart said.

Of course I’m sure he wants to be traveling and fundraising for his hand picked nominee, Ken Canfield.  As I have pointed out before, the Governor’s race has much higher stakes for Brownback than you might think.  If he bombs out in the primaries (which he will) he could be considered as a vice presidential candidate.  However, if Kansas has a Democratic Governor she will get to appoint his successor.  With the hit the republicans will take in the Senate anyway on 2006, one seat could make the difference.  It could certainly be the tipping point for a decision about a running mate.

According to Salon.com, Brownback was not in attendance at the panel “Marriage in the States” which he was previously scheduled to attend. Must have been something important to keep him from throwing some red meat to his base.

Also, Josh over at Thoughts From Kansas has an excellent dissection of one part of Brownback’s appearance on NPR.

According to Campus Progress’s mole inside CPAC, Senator Bill Frist intends to bring an anti gay marriage amendment to the Senate in June:

Frist went on to flaunt and advertise the fact that he would be bringing a Marriage protection amendment to the senate on June 5th, telling conservative attendees to “mark their calendars.” Anyone who opposes such an amendment, take note: things will soon be heating up.

This is big news.  I’m sure Senator Sam Brownback will be a cosponsor.  For Brownback, this is yet another opportunity for him to increase his name recognition.  If the republicans actually try to force the issue beyond a symbolic vote this could become quite the fight.  Brownback could easily end up the de facto spokesperson for this orgy of intolerance.

On a different subject, if anyone has access to tapes or transcripts of Brownback’s remarks at CPAC I would be interested in taking a look.  Let me know.

Senator Sam Brownback’s NPR appearance is now available online.  Click on the “Listen” button located near the top of the story page.

Nothing too spectacular in there.  Brownback compared abortion to slavery and denied being interested in a Christian Theocracy in the United States.  He predicted when Roe v. Wade is overturned (he sounded pretty confident) abortion will become a state issue and will be outlawed in many places.

There was no questioning of his stance on Stem Cells and no mention of the theocracy minded group that he is a part of (The Fellowship).

In all, much more sympathetic than the Rolling Stone article.  For many people this was probably their introduction to Sam Brownback the presidential candidate.

This afternoon on All Things Considered Senator Sam Brownback will be the subject of a story about his political career and his aspirations for the republican nomination for president in 2008.

National stories such as this do wonders for his name recognition and also serve to make him a more legitamate candidate in the eyes of the media.

More on this story later after the audio is available on the web.

The Wichita Eagle is reporting a group of evangelical leaders will be running TV advertisements in Kansas with the goal of persuading Senator Sam Brownback to work towards reducing global warming:

A group called the Evangelical Climate Initiative will begin airing television ads in Kansas in the next two weeks urging the government to pay more attention to global warming. They’re courting Brownback, a leading Christian conservative in Congress, to support mandatory limits on the emissions many scientists believe contribute to climate change…

The group’s credibility as Christian activists, its outspoken environmental stance, and the controversies it’s causing within fundamentalist circles is showing that the “evangelical” movement is not the solidly Republican phenomenon many outsiders consider it to be, said Carl Raschke, an expert on religion and politics at the University of Denver.

“When movements become mainstream, they tend to fracture,” he said…

Brownback noted that the U.S. government already spends billions on climate-change-related activities. He supports more funding for nuclear energy, along with greater reliance on clean electricity and biofuels to slow harmful emissions.

But more radical changes should be handled with care, he said, because they “may have real consequences on our economy.”

The last sentence should read, “I am going to try and ignore these people because my largest campaign contributor of campaign funds is Koch Industries, a notorious pollutor.”

This push by some evangelicals will be an interesting dynamic in GOP politics. Senator Brownback is not the only Christian Conservative who also drinks from the cup of environmentally disastrous corporations. While the religious right provides the ground troops for a campaign, business interests bring in a large share of the money. Brownback will have to rebuff these evangelicals who are concerned about climate change because his fundraising depends on groups like Koch Industries. Brownback has always been cozy with the Cato Institute (also bankrolled by Koch) and they argue for complete environmental deregulation. No way will Brownback cross them.
Stem Cell research is also a wedge issue between business and religious conservatives. Pharmaceutical companies want the ability to create drugs that could be highly profitable and are not interested in government intrusion into private sector research. This fight is one of the current headlines in Missouri politics.

In a sense, this will show where Senator Brownback’s true loyalty lies. He could surprise me, rebuff Koch and his other big contributors, and join this growing evangelical movement. I doubt it.

David Broder has a column in the Denver Post that uses Senator Sam Brownback as a barometer to guage the President’s support with conservatives over the domestic spying issue:

No member of the Senate is more conservative than Sam Brownback of Kansas - a loyal Republican, an ardent opponent of abortion and, not coincidentally, a presidential hopeful for 2008.

And that is why the misgivings he expressed Monday about the surveillance policies Bush has employed in the war on terror are so striking… Brownback emerged as part of a potential majority that could insist that Bush come back to Congress for authority to continue the wiretaps - but under court supervision.

In questioning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Brownback said, “It strikes me that we’re going to be in this war on terrorism possibly for decades … \[and\] to have another set of eyes also looking at this surveillance technique is an important thing in maintaining the public’s support for this.” What Brownback put in gentle terms is exactly the issue that clearly troubled all but six of the 18 senators in the hearing - the absence of any external checks on the secret wiretapping the president ordered after the Sept. 11 attacks.

What Broder fails to recognize is that President Bush’s approval ratings are so low Brownback is benefited by being on the other side of certain issues.  His stance on the spying scandal is a shrewed political move that you can be certain he will use to his advantage later in the campaign season.

As per the Wichita Eagle, Senator Sam Brownback attended Coretta Scott King’s funeral this morning. Via Thoughts from Kansas, a quote from the great lady that Brownback should take to heart:

“Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.”

“We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny…I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be,” she said, quoting her husband. “I’ve always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy.”

Amen Mrs. King. I only wish our Senator Brownback could have the same tolerant, outlook on life and liberty.

As part of his quest to become the nation’s leading hawk on Iran, Senator Sam Brownback has proposed that the World Bank revoke it’s funding of Iran. Brownback had this to say at an American Enterprise Institute panel on Iran:

Then, we must push aggressively in international organizations. We have worked well within the International Atomic Energy Agency. Now let’s ensure that we do the same in the United Nations and at the World Bank. I am betting that few Americans realize that the Iranian regime is among the top ten borrowers of the World Bank. Over the last three years, Iran has received more than $1.1 billion from the Bank, more than half in the last year.

And the #1 bankroller of the World Bank?? Yes, it is the United States. The World Bank must stop lending to the Tehran regime until they renounce terrorism and stop pursuing nuclear weapons.

What sorts of nefarious projects does the World Bank fund? Earthquake cleanup and emergency healthcare, clean water efforts for rural Iranians, slum improvement projects, and small business loans to promote capitalism.

So Brownback’s plan is ridiculous. That much is obvious. As several studies have noted, if you want to reduce Islamic extremism you need to improve the economic conditions in the country. Endemic, generational poverty breeds hopelessness and that is exactly the environment in which the madrassas thrive. Taking away money that is used to clean up slums and fund small businesses is counterproductive to the goal of reducing Islamic extremism.

It is alarming that Senator Brownback is so vindictive towards the Iranian people. The world Bank funds projects that are focused on improving the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable citizens. Would revoking World Bank funding effect the mullahs day to day activities? Not likely. However, for a young boy growing up in a slum it may change his future from being a shop owner to a shop bomber.

At the very least this proposal is irresponsible and naive.