Field of Dreams
Eastland, Terry
Field of Dreams Sam Brownback does some spadework in Iowa. by Terry Eastland Sam Brownback lives closer to Iowa than any of the other Republicans likely to run for president in 2008. Brownback,...
...Former Brownback chief of staff and informal campaign adviser David Kensinger cautions against assuming from 2000 "a static caucus population" and forecasts "a big spike" in the percentage of social conservatives in 2008, up to "33 or 34 percent...
...You can't just walk in hoping to win by spending money on radio and television ads," says Kevin McLaughlin, a Des Moines stockbroker, president of Iowans for Discounted Taxes, and now a member of Brownback's exploratory committee...
...That allows him to raise money and gauge support for a presidential race without actually announcing his candidacy...
...Brownback would probably not be on the verge of running for president if Iowa, with its peculiar caucus process, were not first on the nominating schedule...
...Rob Wasinger, Brownback's former chief of staff and now his campaign manager, says Brownback will make a formal announcement within the next two months...
...Candidates ahead of him in the initial polls would seem to be less attractive to social conservatives: McCain, in part because he declined to support the federal marriage amendment...
...Indeed, if Brownback decides not to run, it will probably be that the price of admission is simply too high...
...Scheffler says it would be the first ever arranged by "a faith-based institution...
...Two or 3 percent, however, is good enough for fifth place in those Terry Eastland is publisher of The Weekly Standard...
...Wasinger makes the obvious point: "If Brownback can hold the base together, he'll do well...
...And Brownback's backers declare that their man is especially good in that setting...
...The alliance, which doesn't make endorsements, may also schedule a candidates' forum in May...
...A member of the House in 1995-96 and a senator since then, Brownback, who just turned 50, has polled between 0 and 3 percent in recent surveys of Republicans asked whom they'd vote for in a hypothetical GOP presidential primary...
...Of course, Brownback does not enjoy the stature of frontrunners McCain and Giuliani, although Iowa is where this will tell least...
...Another concern for his campaign is money...
...He wears well with people," says Chuck Hurley, a lawyer and former Iowa state legislator who is also a member of the exploratory committee...
...The more people he meets, the more people there will be who say, 'I am really impressed.'" Hurley and other supporters add that Brownback, who grew up on a farm in Kansas and served as his state's agriculture commissioner back in the 1980s, will have a natural rapport with the many Iowans who live in or come from the rural parts of the state...
...And he plans to travel there quite a lot over the next 12 months—through January 21, 2008, the day Iowa Republicans plan to declare their presidential preferences...
...On the other hand, a candidate who does well in small groups can be formidable...
...Evan Bayh is the exception to this rule...
...Brownback may decide not to run...
...New Hampshire will be a week later, and South Carolina a few days after that...
...Caucus-goers like to be personally wooed by the candidates, and the process of wooing takes place in the small-group meetings held with candidates in the months beforehand...
...As currently scheduled, these early contests will be immediately followed by Super Tuesday, when GOP voters in at least 10 states will choose their candidate...
...Iowa is a state where huge media buys, which Brownback couldn't afford anyway, may not help a candidate that much...
...He's been working on campaign themes and their presentation, and also supervising production of a forthcoming autobiography designed to introduce him to a skeptical nation and a dismissive punditry...
...Social conservatives have constituted 25 to 30 percent of the participants in recent Republican caucuses, and Brownback is hoping to increase their percentage this year...
...Brownback, however, doesn't intend to run only as a social conservative...
...Brownback has been doing what likely presidential candidates do at this point in the preparing-to-run process...
...He's optimistic, he's aspirational, he's comfortable in his own skin...
...Brownback, the senior senator from Kansas, resides in Topeka, which is but a few hours by car from Iowa...
...Giuliani, because he is pro-abortion rights and also against the marriage amendment...
...The day he announced his exploratory committee, he told a Republican audience in Cedar Rapids that he saw himself as "a full-scale conservative"—i.e., a fiscal and national security conservative as well as a social conservative...
...But it would be unusual for someone to go so far as to establish an exploratory committee—John McCain has one and so does Rudy Giuliani—and then back out...
...But assuming Brownback does run and does well in Iowa, enough money will come in for him to continue—at least for another week or two...
...Three weeks ago Brownback set up a presidential exploratory committee...
...polls, and Brownback is banking on Iowa to boost his chances of winning the nomination...
...The agriculture community will trust and like him," says Hurley...
...The forum could offer Brownback a chance to sharpen his differences on social issues with McCain, Giuliani, and Romney...
...These caucuses can last for hours, as participants state and defend their candidate preferences before voting, after which the results are phoned in to party headquarters...
...The way the GOP caucuses work is this: Participants in a given precinct meet on a Monday night...
...The Iowa Christian Alliance plans to put out before the caucuses what its president Steve Scheffler calls "a comprehensive voter guide...
...Against the view that compassionate conservatism has run its course, he would embrace that approach to governing and include within it prison reform and combating deadly diseases like malaria abroad...
...Brownback plans to run as an unabashed social conservative—pro-life, for traditional marriage, for adult but not embryonic stem cell research, and for the appointment of judicial conservatives...
...Zandstra is also taking on Giuliani ("unquestionably pro-choice") and McCain ("B-plus" on opposing abortion...
...and Mitt Romney, because he has changed positions on abortion rights (once pro-choice, now pro-life...
...Jerry Zandstra, an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church and political activist in Michigan and a member of Brownback's exploratory committee, is attacking Romney online for his views on abortion (as well as on other social issues), describing him as a candidate who is "historically pro-choice" but whose position "depends on the next election...
...If the past is any guide, more than 100,000 Republicans will show up for the roughly 1,800 precinct meetings across the state...
...Most Iowa Republicans are conservatives— pro-life, for low taxes, and strong on national security...
...Wasinger notes that in 2000 the conservative base in Iowa fractured, with votes going to Steve Forbes (30 percent), Alan Keyes (14 percent), and Gary Bauer (9 percent...
...Should that happen, Brownback would stand to benefit...
...The Brownback campaign, in short, sees an opportunity to position the senator as the standard-bearer for social conservatism...
...Though the dates may move up by a week or two, Iowa will be the first state on the schedule of primaries and caucuses by which the GOP will choose its presidential nominee...
...That would be longer than many a fifth-place starter last...
Vol. 12 • January 2007 • No. 16
