When Rolling Stone pro­files our foot wash­ing Sen­a­tor, you know it’ll make inter­est­ing read­ing. Brown­back, despite being the younger and less expe­ri­enced of Kansas’s two Sen­a­tors, is undoubt­ed­ly lead­ing fig­ure in the Kansas Repub­li­can Par­ty. Pat Roberts seems con­tent to cruise along, the rare Sen­a­tor who seems unin­ter­est­ed in high­er office. Sam Brown­back admits to intense ambi­tion, his can­di­date just announced for gov­er­nor, and the oppo­si­tion has been sapped of strength by con­stant rumors of a Brown­back-ed can­di­date to come (before Can­field, Brown­back was court­ing for­mer Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs Richard Myers).

Jef­frey Sharlet explains:

Brown­back seeks some­thing … rad­i­cal: not faith-based pol­i­tics but faith in place of pol­i­tics. In his dream Amer­i­ca, the one he believes both the Bible and the Con­sti­tu­tion promise, the state will sim­ply with­er away. In its place will be a coun­try so suf­fused with God and the free mar­ket that the social fab­ric of the last hun­dred years — schools, Social Secu­ri­ty, wel­fare — will be pri­va­tized or sim­ply done away with.

This is the Domin­ion­ist world­view, one that push­es a vision of an Amer­i­ca in which the Bible replaces the Constitution.

[Brown­back] tells a sto­ry about a chap­lain who chal­lenged a group of sen­a­tors to recon­sid­er their con­cep­tion of democ­ra­cy. “How many con­stituents do you have?” the chap­lain asked. The sen­a­tors answered: 4 mil­lion, 9 mil­lion, 12 mil­lion. “May I sug­gest,” the chap­lain replied, “that you have only one constituent?”

Brown­back paus­es. That moment, he declares, changed his life. “This” — being sen­a­tor, run­ning for pres­i­dent, wav­ing the flag of a Chris­t­ian nation — “is about serv­ing one con­stituent.” He rais­es a hand and points above him.

Those “4 mil­lion, 9 mil­lion, 12 mil­lion” all mean some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent when they point to the heav­ens. That’s what makes democ­ra­cy fas­ci­nat­ing. Of course, being a right-wing play­er in Kansas means Brown­back has­n’t had to wor­ry too much about keep­ing his con­stituents hap­py; he’s too pop­u­lar with the estab­lish­ment to face a pri­ma­ry chal­lenge, and the Kansas Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty is a bit too befud­dled to suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenge him in a gen­er­al elec­tion. It’s worth remem­ber­ing that point­ing your fin­ger in the air is both a way of indi­cat­ing a high­er pow­er, and of iden­ti­fy­ing oneself.

Brown­back does­n’t demand that every­one believe in his God — only that they bow down before Him. Part holy war­rior, part holy fool, he preach­es an odd mix of the­o­log­i­cal naivete and diplo­mat­ic savvy.

There’s an odd cow­ardice to his brand of reli­gious authoritarianism:

When Brown­back trav­els, he tries to avoid spend­ing time alone in his hotel room, where inde­cent tele­vi­sion pro­gram­ming might tempt him.

I trust myself to be moral. I don’t need threats and cajol­ing from cos­mic forces to make me respect moral­i­ty. Sam Brown­back does­n’t trust me, that stands to rea­son, because he does­n’t trust himself.

But he does trust Robert Wasinger, his chief of staff. At Har­vard, Wasinger pushed to oust gay fac­ul­ty, express­ing con­cern for the men’s sperm, which must “swim into feces.” 

Love­ly, love­ly man.