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Posted: September 21, 2007 6:02 PM
Brownback Makes His Case on the NewsHour
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Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., sat down with the NewsHour’s Ray Suarez on Thursday to talk about his campaign and issues such as Iraq, immigration and family values.

Brownback told Suarez that the U.S. military in Iraq is “doing everything they’re asked to do. But we’re not getting a political solution on the ground. … We’re holding a resolution, I hope to get it to the floor this week, pushing for a soft partition, still one country, but leaving the Kurds in control of the north, giving the Sunnis control of the west, Shia the south, and Baghdad still a federal city.”

That resolution came on Friday, introduced with Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., calling for the United States to “actively support a federal political solution based on the Iraqi constitution, with strong regions and a limited national government in Baghdad.”

Brownback told Suarez that while Iraq is a major issue in the race, “[O]n our side of the aisle, immigration has more dominated the windshield, if you will, than even the war.”

Throughout the race, members of his own party have criticized Brownback over immigration, as the senator has tried to portray himself as both compassionate and tough on illegal immigration.

“That’s where I find the toughest rub,” Brownback told Suarez. “And that’s where I come with enforcing the law, but a guest-worker program that I would hope people could qualify for and get in as they follow the process that everybody else does.”

The conversation turned to other social issues. “I really believe, in my heart and soul, that if we would rebuild and strengthen the family structure in the country, you’d start to really deal with a number of the most difficult problems we’re having in the country today, in poverty, education, and in crime,” Brownback said.

On Thursday, Brownback introduced the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act, which would require a doctor, before performing an abortion, to perform an ultrasound and offer to review the results with the woman seeking the abortion. The woman would have the right to refuse reviewing the results.

Earlier in the week, the Washington Post launched a new feature, the FactChecker, and examined Brownback’s claims that there is a correlation between gay marriage and civil unions and rise in children being born out of wedlock.

The Post saw “no factual basis for Brownback’s assertion of a connection between gay marriages and out-of-wedlock births” and awarded Brownback three Pinocchios.

Finally, Brownback told reporters on Saturday that he will need at least a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses to continue his campaign for the White House.