Brownback Bares "Bleeding Heart"

GOP Presidential candidate Sam Brownback, campaigning in New Hampshire, says he's not just any conservative:

Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, told New Hampshire crowds yesterday that he isn't just any conservative. In his first visit as a presidential candidate, he introduced himself as a "bleeding-heart conservative."

"America is best when she's good," he said, using Ronald Reagan-like rhetoric while speaking to 30 employees at Oracle Corp. in Nashua. "It's that fundamental goodness that makes America great, and that goodness to me is based upon our belief that every single person is unique, beautiful and sacred."

Brownback, who supports a flat tax, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and the reversal of Roe v. Wade, stressed his conservative record with Midwestern folksiness.

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But Brownback, a converted Catholic, has also taken positions beyond party orthodoxy. He called himself "pro-life" and "whole-life," a term that referred to his efforts to end human-rights abuses.

He spoke about his travels to Sudan and his support for more effort to help stop genocide in Darfur. Instead of a troop increase in Iraq, he said, the war there needs a political solution. And he said that illegal immigrants should have a path to U.S. citizenship.

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