The Anti-Sam Brownback Blog

Noam Scheiber of the New Republic reads into Brownback’s stance on Iraq:

So what is Brownback up to? On one level it’s pretty obvious. John McCain and, to varying degrees, the rest of the GOP field have cast their lot with Bush and the surge. There’s nothing for a longshot like Brownback to gain by falling in line behind them, and plenty to gain by distinguishing himself on the issue. That’s particularly true given the exceedingly likely possibility that the surge will fail, at which point Brownback will look somewhere between sober and prophetic.

More interestingly, the move turns out to be pretty welcome among Brownback’s desired base of social conservatives. While 52 percent of Republicans support the surge according to a just-released AP/Ipsos poll, some 60 percent of white evangelicals oppose [a troop surge in Iraq], as do 56 percent of self-described conservatives. So we’re actually talking about a twofer here: shore up your base while positioning yourself to poach votes from the other guys. (Actually, a three-fer, since this has the added merit of being the substantively sane position.) Not bad for a day’s work.

I’ve always maintained that Brownback is crazy like a fox…