Story here.
I don’t really know much about Brownback except that he’s reputedly an extreme social-religious conservative. Anyway, the usual topics for debate:
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Would he make a good POTUS?
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Is he electable?
No and no. But he still provides value to the party, as any extremist does, by making the “real” candidates look moderate.
Brownback doesn’t have a chance. I doubt he’ll win a single state. His only hope is to get a prime time spot during the convention as a former candidate and help the religous right get their views across during the convention. The pubbies have used the past two conventions featuring their moderates.
- Who is more unfortunately named – Tom Vilsack, Sam Brownback, or Mike Huckabee?
(Dennis Kucinich must be feeling so much better on that point this time 'round. 
)
Good for him! A democracy needs candidates willing to stand.
That some kind of anachronistic crack at FDR?
The only previous knowledge I had of him was when he attempted to block the appointment of a Federal judge not even in his state because she had “demonstrated contempt for American values” – the offense? She attended a commitment ceremony for two neighbors, a Lesbian couple.
This tells me all I need to know about Sam Brownback, without looking into what nuances of conservative thought he may expound.
No, just an honest comment. A quick search would have shown that I made a very similar comment about a Democrat contender.
I can hardly imagine a scarier POTUS. I would look back on GWB’s tenure as “the glory days” if this goblin somehow managed to get elected.
Completely out of touch with reality, except the reality desired by religious zealots. Unless the average citizen suddenly desires a Christian version of Iran, he will not get elected. Plus his last name sounds like some odd homosexual sex act. :dubious:
I’m thinking that, thanks to Gee Dubya, 2008 is not going to embrace another moronic Evangelical conservative as president.
- Dear lord NO!
- NO
No, and no.
But the interesting question is, “could he win the GOP nomination?” And the GOP being what it is, I’d say he’s got a real chance.
My theory is that when a candidate for a party nomination comes out of the white noise to either (a) win the nomination outright, a la Carter in 1976, or (b) scare the bejeebers out of the frontrunners before losing (McCain 2000 and a host of others), there has to be some sort of underserved electoral market, so to speak, within that party.
George Allen’s macacacide and McCain’s failure so far to persuade the religious wingnuts that he’s really One Of Them, along with none of the Giuliani-Gingrich-Romney tier having much of a chance to do better than McCain in this department, leaves a huge, gaping underserved electoral market in the GOP. The fundies are the party’s electoral base, and they’re a base without a candidate right now.
Enter Brownback.
It’s like you read my mind, Quartz. I just 20 minutes ago finished writing an OpEd for my paper with exactly these sentiments. It is NEVER a bad thing to have more candidates, and therefore more choices, and therefore more diversity of debate and opinion, in the political arena. It allows the voters more room to consider the candidates because, with more of them in the arena, there’s more pressure on them to make their policy positions clearly as well as clearly different from the other candidates. With two candidates there’s strong pressure to be vague and amorphous in position statements…and that bites ass, in the vernacular.
Brownback’s got little shot, regardless of what people might say, but he might be angling for down the road, or he might be aiming at the VP slot.
Though I will say that an Ohio GOP operative just told me (at lunch on Friday) that his group of the party is currently favoring a Romney/Giuliani ticket. But with two years to go all hell could change.
Boston and New York? But how will they win the South?
But would they need to, is the real question. Obama and Clinton ain’t a-gonna move a lotsa people down there.
Oh, and there’s a kissy-kissy opinion piece in the Washington Post today setting up Jeb Bush as a strong VP (or even P) candidate for 2008. Heads up.
The man is a jackass, with his eye on the main chance, not where he’s from.
Brownback is from Topeka, Kansas, my home too, where I live and work. He’s become so out of touch that when our newspaper, the Topeka Capital-Journal, asked for a 15 minute interview, (Knowing he was announcing his candidacy), they were told he was “too busy, he didn’t have the time”
Not a good way to win friends and influence people back home now, is it? I wouldn’t vote for the man, and I’m a registered Republican!
USA TODAY - Breaking News and Latest News Today This is a column the executive editor of the paper wrote.
Neither are a Mormon from Boston and a pro-choice, pro-gay adulterer from New York. People in the south would stay home in droves for that ticket.
With the current President’s approval ratings at 29% or so, I can’t believe anyone would seriously think about running his brother. (Not that Jeb wouldn’t be a better President than Dubya, but I can’t think of fainter praise.)
Brownback doesn’t really have a chance. A successful GOP candidate needs to appeal about equally to both factions of their base–the business folks and the evangelicals. If a candidate is too firmly in one camp, the other faction will be wary of his dedication to their interests. This was a big reason for Bush’s success. I’m sure Brownback is plenty friendly to business, but since he’s mostly made his reputation as a fundie nutjob, the big business types will look elsewhere.