What features of the American landscape are most recognizable from 30,000 feet in the air? Next time you’re on a flight somewhere, look out the window. You’ll see farm plots and church steeples, first. Nowhere could this be seen more vibrantly than in the midwest. This fusion of agrarianism and faith is nowhere more embodied in a candidate for president than with Sen. Sam Brownback.

Brownback is a native Kansan and won’t hesitate in telling you he was born on a farm. . The farm represents everything about America to Brownback: its vastness, fertility, potential, and life. Working his parents’ farm gave Brownback the sense that personal initiative and human ingenuity is vital to prosperity.

Brownback’s respect for the American work ethic extends to his days in the Senate. Brownback has signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge to oppose all tax increases. He’s one of the few candidates who has proposed a realistic change—scrapping the cumbersome tax cod and replacing it with an optional flat tax. Brownback describes what should happen to the tax code in words that resonate with middle-America: “the tax code should be taken behind the barn and killed with a dull axe.”

Brownback’s dedication to the free market is only surmounted by his dedication to life. It extends to the most disadvantaged and most vulnerable. Brownback’s campaign is founded upon a “Pro-Life, Whole-Life” philosophy. What might come off as pro-life haughtiness, Brownback has been consistently pro-life. Moreover, he is dogged in his defense of all stages of life: the unborn, the underprivileged, the death-row inmate, the child in Darfur, and the family in North Korea.

Which means humane-ness is all interconnected for Brownback. God, farms, entrepreneurship, family––America. These facets of the American spirit should give some anticipation for the future. America is an optimistic nation and in this deeply fragmented time, Brownback offers hope. America is exceptional because it is good.

To be sure while he is at home stumping in the hot Iowa fields, he has more work to do. He came in third in the 2007 Iowa Straw Poll where money counted. So far, Brownback has raised almost four million dollars. But there are many months before the ultimate decision. His supporters are passionate, his vision is strong, his command of the issues unexcelled. . .

This quaint campaign Brownback has mounted resembles the early days of Ronald Reagan’s historic 1980 bid. Like Reagan he embodies the American spirit. That may in the last analysis be the best campaign resource of all.

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Nicholas Hahn III is a DePaul University student, heads the DePaul Conservative Alliance. Earlier this year he was cited as one of ten outstanding young conservatives in the nation.. He is a member of the editorial board of The Chicago Daily Observer.