David Brooks scans the horizon for a potentially winning GOP presidential candiate in 2012 or 2016. In the process, he discovers Sen. John Thune (SD). The money lines, in my opinion, are these …

[Thune] is a gracious and ecumenical legislator, not a combative one.

And …

The first person who told me I had to write a column about Thune was a liberal Democratic senator who really likes the guy.

In these respects, Sen. Thune seems to stand in stark contrast to many of his peers, whom Brooks describes as “people who appear to have gone into government because they saw it as a steppingstone to talk radio.”