Every presidential candidate eventually comes to New York to raise campaign money. Last Wednesday, I attended a fund-raiser for one I had completely forgotten had announced: Senator Brownback.

Shame on me, because the Kansan is well known to the pro-life community as a great defender of the unborn. He is also against gay marriage. Regardless, the headlines in the mainstream news outlets are constantly crowing about the right’s search for a candidate, and most local coverage concentrates only on Mayor Giuliani vs. Senator Clinton.

Mr. Brownback seems unperturbed by the lack of local reporting on his candidacy. I asked him what he thought his chances were, and he said quite confidently that they are pretty good. “I came in third in Iowa,” he said. Last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference drew negative attention because of Ann Coulter’s inauspicious remark about Senator Edwards, but in a straw poll of the GOP candidates, Mr. Brownback was third, only five points behind winner Governor Romney.

At his Manhattan fund-raiser, I posed the following question to the senator: Should he win the Republican primary, would he consider Mr. Giuliani as a running mate? The senator said he wouldn’t rule out any of the other candidates because they’re all good men, but he qualified this by adding that everything is very speculative right now. It is still very early in the race.

Of course, that question was somewhat moot because the odds are heavily in favor of Mr. Giuliani running as an Independent should he lose the GOP nomination. New Yorkers familiar with Mr. Giuliani’s ego can’t imagine him stepping aside to support the Republican candidate selected in a primary. As I wrote in a previous column, if Mr. Giuliani runs as a spoiler, the Democratic candidate will win the White House.

Mr. Brownback is certainly on the “right” side on all the major issues, and has a sterling reputation in Congress. He has the hardliners’ vote, but as I said before, it’s still too early to endorse anyone until all the candidates have debated one another on the issues.

Messrs. Giuliani and Brownback each support the president on the Iraq war, although Mr. Brownback is not a fan of the surge. The senator also told me he is for a tri-partite division of Iraq as a solution to the region’s conflict.

When it comes to abortion, the senator, a Catholic father of five (two adopted), has always been a champion for the cause of life, and has stated that he wishes to see the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision overturned. This position makes him a long shot to the moderate Republicans who see Mr. Giuliani as having a stronger chance for the presidency. What overturning Roe really means, though, is taking back the government for the people.

When questioning Judge Alito at his confirmation hearing, Mr. Brownback noted that bad precedents should be overturned, even taking the principle of stare decisis into account. “The Supreme Court has gotten a number of things wrong at times. And the answer when the court gets things wrong is to overturn the case,” he told Judge Alito.

“Is that correct?” he asked. Judge Alito agreed.

Citing Plessy v. Ferguson, the infamous decision that allowed for “separate but equal” facilities for blacks, Mr. Brownback made the point that even if a decision has been precedent for years, it does not trump its fundamental unconstitutionality. Even those who support abortion rights can agree that Roe does not have a firm constitutional foundation. Turning it back to the states would give the people a chance to vote on the most divisive social issue in our history since slavery.

Here’s hoping that more candidates will be approaching a serious look at what our judiciary system has wrought. Far too many social issues are determined by the courts due to cases brought by trial lawyers and the ACLU. Americans have become used to having their values trashed by judicial decisions, and what is now needed are judges who recognize exactly what the Bill of Rights stands for. Then they can tell the American Library Association that watching pornography on library computers is not a right protected by the Constitution; that taxpayers are not obligated to pay for sex-change operations; that felons in prison do not deserve more perks than ordinary citizens, and that eminent domain is supposed to benefit citizens, not private developers.

It’s still too early for endorsements, and I’ll reserve mine until next year for the primaries, but it would benefit all of us if we paid more attention to the issues that resonate with the public than to who said what at which political gathering.