Sam Brownback is a Republican Senator from Kansas, born September 12th, 1956. He grew up on his family’s farm near Parker, Kansas, graduated from Kansas State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics, and then earned a law degree from University of Kansas in 1982. After serving as Kansas secretary of agriculture from 1986 to 1993, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1994 to replace Bob Dole, who was running for president at the time. He was elected to a full term in the Senate in 1998, and won re-election in 2004. He has five children with his wife Mary Stauffer, heiress to a Topeka newspaper fortune.

Senator Brownback has spent his ten years in Congress fight for a number of key domestic and foreign issues. He strives to grow the economy to pay off the national debt, provide tax relief to working families in order to create jobs, as well as systematically reform the tax code. Brownback is also a supporter of the New Homestead Act, designed to revitalize the rural Midwest with tax incentives and job creation, as well as stimulate trade by re-entering U.S. beef and agriculture to the world market.

The socially-conservative Senator is a supporter of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would legally define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, prohibiting gay marriage. He is also strongly pro-life, dedicated to protecting the unborn through the Unborn Child Awareness Act, the Cloning Prohibition Act, and the Prenatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act, and has compared stem-cell research to “the Holocaust.” On the international front, Brownback supports instituting democracy in Iran, North Korea, the Ukraine, and the Middle East, and acts as a human rights and trade issues liaison between Europe and the U.S. as chairman of the Helsinki Commission.

Senator Brownback’s positions make him an attractive 2008 presidential candidate among religious conservatives, but many of his staunchly right-wing views may alienate some voters.