Q&A with Sen. Sam Brownback
I only support [capital punishment] in cases where we cannot protect the public from the individual. Osama bin Laden: When we catch him, we cannot protect the public from him. But outside of that, it is difficult to teach a culture of life and that you still use a death penalty.
When it comes to possible advances through stem cell research, how do you weigh the life of a cancer patient with a life in a petri dish that might be discarded?
You've got to make the determination "is this a life or is it property?" Some would argue the life in a petri dish is property and should be treated as such. I don't think you can do that. Just like you can't take a death penalty argument-you can get a death row inmate, harvest his organs, and save 10 lives. And we're galled by that. We'd say, "What are you talking about?" And people say, "He's going to be killed anyway." It galls us. This is the lead social issue of our day.
Do you support the creation of a cap-and-trade system for manufacturers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions?
Global warming has occurred. We have far more CO2 in the atmosphere than we had 100 years ago. That's factual. A number of people question how close the linkage is [to global warming]. It's prudent that we do everything we can without killing the economy to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, regardless of how you look at the correlation. But I'm not at the point yet where I've been able to say the cap-and-trade system would be effective without substantially harming the economy and that it would create a substantial reduction of CO2.
The House just passed a bill to strip federal courts of jurisdiction in cases involving the "one nation under God" wording in the pledge. A good idea?
I support the judicial stripping, regrettably. It's a blunt instrument approach to something that the courts should do themselves, which is show judicial restraint. If the court doesn't show restraint, you'll see more Congresses using this approach. I don't think it's good, but you've got these tectonic plates pushing against each other.
On his support for the Iraq war:
A number of things are happening that are very positive in terms of areas that are secure in Iraq. But in Baghdad, it's a problem. You've got a global war on terrorism that we've been talking about for long time, and now you're seeing it. You just can't say we're going to pull out of Iraq or that six months from now we're going to cut our troop levels in half. The terrorists win. Unlike Vietnam, where they stay there when we leave, these guys come after us.
What are you looking for in the 2006 midterms as you decide whether to run for president?
You've got a lot of people watching 2006 to try to determine are they the right person for 2008. Reagan got this right when he said, "You don't pursue the presidency; it pursues you." You've got to be the right person, with the right set of ideas, at the right moment ... How did Bill Clinton get elected president? If you look at the objective set of factors a year and half out from that election, his odds were 1 in 10. But man, message, and moment all met, and boom.
Some have questioned your ability to raise funds for a presidential bid.
I like the [primary] system, where you have to pass through Iowa and New Hampshire, two retail politics states. This is hand-to-hand combat, and for a guy like me, it makes it that you can actually [compete] because your money threshold isn't as enormous.
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