American Election News

National Journal published an interview with Senator Brownback today.

“[Running for president] lets you understand the country better, understand people and their plights in different places better, and broadens your perspective when you’re looking at the issues nationwide.”

– Sam Brownback

Here are some excerpts from the interview.

On his favorite memory from the campaign trail:

One of my favorite ones is right before the first debate in Simi Valley, the Reagan Library. There are media trucks all around, big buildup to this being the first debate. Nancy Reagan’s there, Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s a gorgeous setting.

I’m a first-time presidential candidate, and this is the first debate. It’s kind of a jittery season, although I didn’t have that, and I was very thankful I didn’t. And just ahead of the debate, they cleared the room out. It was just my wife and I there. I remember looking over at her and seeing her as my young bride — we’ve been married 25 years — but I saw her as my young bride, and both of us looking at each other: “Can you believe we’re here?”

And yet, it didn’t seem all that strange. The God we serve does great things, so that somebody that’s the son of a farmer can run for president of the United States. It’s just not that extraordinary. But you think about it, and it really is an extraordinary thing — that anybody in this country can aspire to run for president and be president and actually do it.

On Teaming Up with Joe Biden in Iowa regarding the War in Iraq:

The country wants to see the government work for them. We have been in a particularly difficult and partisan season. I think that the country’s hungry to see the government work for them. That event, I think, was a novelty, but it also was on a big topic. People are saying, “That’s what I want to see taking place. People working together to get something done that’s significant.”

And I would think some of the other presidential candidates would look at that and say, that should tell them something about where the country is right now. You can find these zones of things people can work together on to get things done. And I think the candidate that can legitimately tap into that is going to have a leg up in the race.

On Meeting with Rudy Giuliani:

It was a very good meeting, a very engaging gentleman. I thought their campaign particularly played it well. I said I’ll meet with anybody that wants to meet with me, and they were on it. And then I got a lot of pushback from people saying, “You’re not going to endorse Rudy Giuliani, are you?” And I didn’t, obviously.

But we had a very engaging meeting, and I ended the meeting with one of the press people saying, “Can you support and endorse a pro-choice candidate?” And I said “I don’t know that Mayor Giuliani would describe himself as a pro-choice candidate.” And I turned to the mayor, and he told me he was against federal funding of abortion, he would appoint strict constructionists to the judiciary — a number of things that wouldn’t be seen as a pro-choice position, particularly relative to Democrat pro-choice candidates. And he didn’t say one way or another, but to me, that was one of the striking pieces of the conversation — the number of issues we agreed upon on the narrow, specific issues surrounding the right-to-life issue.

On endorsing Senator John McCain over Mike Huckabee:

I looked and I thought about all the candidates a lot. I prayed about it, and for me it really came down to Mike Huckabee and John McCain. But I really felt that John was the one that could best compete and win ultimately in the fall of 2008.

I think he’s the most qualified person running now, ready to be president. He’s ready to be commander in chief. He has foreign policy experience. He’s a budget hawk, has been for a long time. He has a 20-year pro-life voting record. And he can perform in swing states. He can win in Florida. He can win in Missouri. He can win in Ohio. And we’ve got to have somebody that can perform in swing states. He can win in Florida. He can win in Missouri. He can win in Ohio. And we’ve got to have somebody that can perform in those states. So that’s why it came down to John for me.

Make sure to read the entire interview here.

Subscribe To Site:

Full Post Feed | Summary Feed | Comments Feed