The announcement of Kansas Senator Sam Brownback’s withdrawal from the presidential race is slated for tomorrow, when Brownback is supposed to join the other GOP candidates at the Family Research Council’s big annual Washington event. I’m not sure how to reconcile that with press reports that Brownback will announce his withdrawal from his home state of Kansas. I’ll be at FRC’s event, and if Brownback is there, I’ll liveblog the announcement as it happens.
Some thoughts on the withdrawal. Brownback had raised $4,235,333 this year. Having spent $4,140,660, he is left with less than $100,000 left in the bank. That’s simply not going to cut it, especially when Rudy Giuliani has $17 million in the bank and Mitt Romney has close to $10 million. (More money figures here.)
The big winner here is Mike Huckabee. Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, was Brownback’s main competition for the evangelical vote (and the evangelical money). Huckabee is picking up steam lately, moving into a tie for second in Iowa, while Brownback still can’t crack the top five. Romney is trying to secure the religious vote, but Brownback has routinely slammed Romney as a phony, so it’s unlikely his supporters will jump ship to the Massachusetts Mountebank.
And FYI — if you google Sam Brownback, the first thing that pops up is a sponsored link reading, “Mike Huckabee in 2008.”
Past Mother Jones blog posts on Brownback here, here, and here.
