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Amidst all the coverage of Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign announcement, Senator Sam Brownback also made his bid for the White House official on Saturday.
Brownback, the Methodist-turned-Catholic senator from Kansas, is positioning himself as the only true conservative on the track, and will likely focus his energy on the socially conservative, activist base in early voting states like Iowa and South Carolina.
Brownback’s supporters say the party’s better-known contenders — Arizona Sen. John McCain, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney — offer weaker platforms for voters who strongly oppose abortion, same-sex marriage and stem cell research.
“There are really two primaries taking place simultaneously in the Republican party,” said Gary Bauer, the family values activist who ran for president in 2000. “One, for center-left candidates, is being fought out between Giuliani and Senator McCain. On the conservative side, nobody has captured that crown yet, but Senator Brownback will be a major competitor.”
Religious leaders, such as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, have already rejected a McCain candidacy. While many would rather talk of the pending war within the Democratic Party, not enough attention has been devoted to the “two primaries” facing the GOP.
The 2008 race will be the first since 1952 with no incumbent president or vice president on either ticket. Both parties will have an opportunity to decide the direction they want to go in, but for the Republicans, the choice will likely be between a populist, socially conservative base that has exerted influence for nearly three decades, and a libertarian wing that wishes to reduce the influence of government. An internal revolt against the vice of moderation might excite the Republican Party faithful, but would undoubtedly be music to the ears of a few Democratic horses.