Nick Gillespie
As noted below former Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) died over the weekend at the age of 73. He is in many ways an inspiring figure but for dead-end Republicans his career is also a cautionary tale on never quite fulfilling your promise or thinking truly radical thoughts.
A football standout in the old AFL (he quarterbacked the Buffalo Bills to two consecutive championships in the mid-60s) he pretty much closed out his political career with an embarrassing run for vice-president on one of the worst presidential tickets in recent memory.
Not only was Bob Dole a total joke (remember his dissing of non-Arnold Schwarzenegger violent movies he acknowledged he had never seen? his pledge to build a bridge back to the past? his promise to serve only one term?) but Kemp was pretty godawful too totally back on his heels untutored in the issues of the moment a lumbering stumblebum in debates with Al Gore.
By all accounts Kemp was a good guy and he is already being showered in death with praise most of it deserved. He systematically referred to himself as a bleeding heart conservative promoted entrepreneurship good race relations and most influentially tax reform.
He was in the happy warrior mold and seamlessly shifted from talking about his personal experiences to his politics. This was especially true when it came to civil rights and Kemp as a guy who saw the last gasp of segregation from the crucial vantage point of sports was genuinely moving at times.
Along with Bill Bennett Kemps public stance against Californias odious Prop. 187 a massively popular anti-immigrant measure that got then-Gov. Pete Wilson re-elected and destroyed the GOP in California was a stand-up-and-cheer moment one of those all-too-rare episodes in which a pol does what is right despite his party affiliation.
Yet when you survey his actual accomplishments compared to what might have been its hard not to conclude that he faded badly in the second half. In the late 70s he became the chief legislative voice for supply-side economics and the idea that cutting onerous marginal tax rates would unleash productivity and ultimately increase tax revenue.
He championed low-tax empowerment zones in rotten urban areas (and implemented some as George H.W. Bushs HUD secretary). A lot of Republicans spent the second half of the 80s and early 90s wishing hed been Reagans VP pick. He was they figured a youthful version of Reagan and he would have kept to a No New Taxes pledge better than Bush 41.
Maybe but throughout his career Kemp never really finished or followed up on anything. He didnt score bigger victories with tax policy and he never pushed through for higher office. His ideas were easily co-opted by government and he never dug around for the empirical evidence that his empowerment zones would become anything more than a bureaucratic morass.
He championed home ownership in public housing policy with his much-ballyhooed HOPE program a classic case of a well-intentioned plan that absolutely failed in practice. Designed to transfer public units to low-income residents it didnt transfer a single unit. His creation along with Bennett and former Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.) of Empower America was supposed to provide a bold new voice in GOP circles but it ultimately did nothing of the sort and whimpered to an end.
Despite his accomplishments in professional sports in the end he was like a high-school jock who ends up trading on faded glory to sell insurance and have a life spent in front of sympathetic audiences.
Republicans and small-government reformers should take from Kemp his vitality genial nature and genuine sense of inclusivity regarding the American Dreamwhen you compare him to folks such as say Trent Lott you can understand how appealing Kemp could be as a model for a party that might not creep out half or more of Americans. They especially should focus on the notion that having a positive agenda might win some hearts and minds. But they should also remember that being a true policy innovator like being a successful entrepreneur requires the sort of principles and sweat equity that Kemp in the end couldnt or wouldnt deliver on.
Remembering Jack Kemp the player
By Reid Cherner & Tom Weir
While Jack Kemp is being eulogized for all he did in Congress and as a shaper of the nations economic policies lets also take time to remember he was one heck of a quarterback.
ESPNs Paul Maguire says he and Kemp belonged to the miniscule fraternity of 19 players who played during all 10 years of the AFLs existence. Kemp also was an AFL MVP. (
1996 photo by Kevork Djansezian/AP)
Coming out of Occidental College where he was a roommate of future NFL coach Jim Mora Kemp ended up with the upstart league after being drafted and cut by the Detroit Lions. That took him to San Diego where he was on Army reserve but ruled unfit for duty because of an injury in 1961. Months later he led the Chargers to a division title.
Another injury led San Diego to give up on Kemp and for a mere $100 Buffalo grabbed the QB that led it to two AFL titles off the waiver wire.
Bills cornerback Booker Edgerson told USA TODAYs Kathy Kiely that Kemp was always an advocate for the little guy and that he urged his teammates in those days of far lower salaries to prepare for the future because this is a game that will pass you by.
Edgerson became an administrator at a community college in Buffalo and says he helped set up the meeting with civil rights leaders that convinced Kemp to support the move for a Martin Luther King holiday.
A memorable Kemp quote on his early days in football:
It was the same story every place I went. I was the guy they kept for insurance. They should have dressed me up in a policy instead of a uniform.
And on how football prepared him for politics:
Pro football gave me a good perspective. When I entered the political arena I had already been booed cheered cut sold traded and hung in effigy.
