Sen. Sam Brownback, for one. Because he believes the 2008 presidential election is about abortion and judges.

He says the pro-life movement has to step up and be
involved because the results of the presidential race could determine
the abortion outcome for 35 more years.

“The next president is probably going to determiner for the
foreseeable future whether or not Roe is overturned,” Brownback said in
a Thursday interview. “That’s how important this next presidency is.”

“If it’s someone on the GOP side, any of the GOP nominees would
appoint one or two justices ho do not find a constitutional right to an
abortion and I believe Roe would be overturned,” Brownback told
LifeNews.com.

“if it’s one of the Democrats, they will appoint activist judges who
will not overturn Roe and we will be two to three judges away from
overturning it,” the senator added. “This is I believe the pro-life
issue in the upcoming campaign.”

The ‘three-legged stool’ metaphor that refers to the fiscal, social
and defense conservatives holding up the Republican party doesn’t
account for a fourth leg as seriously staunch as the others: judicial
conservatives. Social conservatives are concerned with the life issues.
Judicial conservatives take that a step further, to where the issues
get engraved into law.

These law professors explain their support in the Wall Street Journal online.
This presidential election comes just when the Roberts Court has been
building on the “enormous gains” of the past three decades, which would
hit the skids with new and likely activist judges appointed by a
Democrat in the White House.

We believe that the nomination of John McCain is the
best option to preserve the ongoing restoration of constitutional
government. He is by far the most electable Republican candidate
remaining in the race, and based on his record is as likely to appoint
judges committed to constitutionalism as Mitt Romney, a candidate for
whom we also have great respect.

We make no apology for suggesting that electability must be a prime
consideration. The expected value of any presidential candidate for the
future of the American judiciary must be discounted by the probability
that the candidate will not prevail in the election. For other kinds of
issues, it may be argued that it is better to lose with the perfect
candidate than to win with an imperfect one. The party lives to fight
another day and can reverse the bad policies of an intervening
presidency.

The judiciary is different. On Jan. 20, 2009, six of the nine
Supreme Court justices will be over 70. Most of them could be replaced
by the next president, particularly if he or she is re-elected. Given
the prospect of accelerating gains in modern medical technology, some
of the new justices may serve for half a century. Even if a more
perfect candidate were somehow elected in 2012, he would not be able to
undo the damage, especially to the Supreme Court.

Accordingly, for judicial conservatives electability must be a paramount consideration.

Confused? That’s the other “C” word of this election.