Kansas City, Mo. ? Confirmation hearings for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s successor could offer national exposure for a Kansas senator who may seek a presidential run.

Republican Sam Brownback landed a spot this term on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the body charged with holding hearings on President Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

The hearings could give many Americans their first glimpse of a man who could seek to earn the GOP nomination for the White House.

“It’s a big opportunity for him,” said Norm Ornstein, a political scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. “The hearings will be very high profile. There’s a pretty good chance we’ll see a significant portion of them televised by the networks.”

Ornstein said Brownback would face a big question if the president nominates a moderate, such as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who likely would be “outright opposed or unhappily received by a good share of Sam’s base.”

“Does he fall in behind the president?” Ornstein asked. “Or does he try to stake out that position on the right?”

Kansas State University political scientist Joe Aistrup said Brownback must present himself as a strong conservative without appearing too strident.

“He has to look like a leader,” Aistrup said. “He can’t sound shrill in pursuing his position, can’t appear to be an intransigent right-wing ideologue.”

For his part, Brownback says he’ll “be watching to determine whether the nominee is committed to the text of the Constitution or seeing it as a living document that changes based upon five votes.”

But as the only potential Republican presidential candidate on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Brownback also seems to grasp what’s at stake. He was among the first on the Senate floor to address O’Connor’s resignation.

In those comments, he said “federal courts today are redefining the meaning of marriage, removing the role of faith in the public square, running prisons and schools by decree, (and) enhancing federal power at the expense of the states.”