Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Brownback on the surge

Here’s the statement, apparently issued before the President’s speech Wednesday evening. TNR’s Noam Scheiber detects a clever political motivation--distinguishing himself from the other Republican conteders and playing to a social conservative base which, according to the poll described here, doesn’t support the surge. (I’d want to see that poll result replicated before I believed that social conservatives, especially white evangelicals, have reversed course on Iraq. My recollection is that they had been the one group most reliably supportive.)

AmSpec’s James Antle and Quin Hillyer are very critical of Brownback, Hillyer noting something the Romney folks pointed out to him--that last month Brownback voiced support for a surge.

Before this, if you had asked me which Republican candidate--regardless of his electability--I found most interesting, I might have said Brownback. No more.

Discussions - 8 Comments

how many times have i been on here saying Brownback’s a goof

.A completely anecdotal poll of one...me..

Well I am not white (Colville Indian). I would catagoraize myself as a Christian Charismatic Conservative. (oooh, a new political classification? hehe).

I turned whole heartedly for bringing the troops home this fall.

Brownback and Hagel are now on this precinct committee person’s radar screen.

FWIW

Once Brownback’s weak position on immigration becomes widely known with the base, he will lose support.



I can reliably report as someone with his finger on the pulse of the anti-war conservatives (wink, wink), we are ecstatic that Ron Paul has formed and exploratory committee. In all seriousness, certain e-mail groups and websites I frequent are abuzz with news of a possible Paul run.



Some of us are already pricing tickets for Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Brownback has shown signs of flakiness before, and we’ll see more of them.
To the extent that "socially conservative" evangelicals ignore these signs, they’re flaky too. Conservatives need to focus seriously on the presidential race if they are to influence it. Eliminating Brownback early on will help this process.

I disagree with Brownback on this as a matter of policy, but rise to defend him against the charge of flip-flopping. I tried to prove he was for the surge before he was against it to take a poke at him in my own blog, and couldn’t find the evidence --when you read his full statements, he always hedged, as in this WaPo story Dec. 31.: GOP lawmakers divided

Ron Paul was anti-war when anti-war wasn’t cool. He was one of only 6 Republicans to vote against the War. He looks pretty smart now.

Plus he has the very novel idea that the government should only spend money on things specifically authorized by the Constitution. Unfortunately in this day and age, that is a truly revolutionary idea.

Brownback is the guy who opposed a candidate for judge because she (the judge) attended a gay reception for the judge’s neighbor’s daughter.

Brownback is a troglodyte bigot. He personifies everything unacceptable about some so-called Republican conservatives.

Contrast this barbarian with VP Cheney.

I am not a fan of "amnesty" Brownback, but why is a conservative supposed to "get with the times" as you are apparently suggesting? Isn’t part of being a conservative about conserving something, like ... oh I don’t know ... Christian social norms, maybe. Sorry, I must have forgotten to do my 20 minutes of "All hail progress!" cheers this morning.

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