Most people are lucky to be successful at one field. Jack Kemp succeeded in two. Before he served as a congressman, secretary of housing and urban development, and runningmate to Bob Dole, Kemp led the Buffalo Bills to consecutive American Football League championships and garnered an MVP award for his play. He was Mr. AFL, playing in all ten of the league's seasons. Upon retirement from football, he immediately embarked on his second career--winning a congressional seat in 1970. He co-authored the most important domestic-affairs legislation in the last 40 years, the Economic Recovery Act of 1981. In an era of bills bearing Orwellian names, the Economic Recovery Act of 1981 was unique in that the economy recovered because of it. Kemp-Roth dropped top tax rates from 77 to 50 percent (they eventually bottomed out at 28 percent) and the economy expanded from 1982 to 1990. His star seemed perpetually ascendant, though it never quite ascended. By the mid-1990s, Kemp appeared as the picture of yesterday's Next Big Thing. Then, surprisingly, Bob Dole selected Kemp as his running mate in 1996. His performance in debate with Al Gore was lackluster, and his campaigning was uninspired. Throughout the 1990s, his "empowerment" agenda reaching out to ethnic minorities won him plaudits but little else. Kemp unleashed no flood, or even trickle, of minority voters into the GOP. The former quarterback found himself out-of-step with the majority of Republicans (but in-step with reality) on the Iraq war. Though Kemp never realized the potential so many saw in him as Reagan's successor, his crucial role as the architect of Reagan's tax cuts makes him one of the most important figures of the postwar conservative movement. As was the case with recent the passings of Jesse Helms, William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, and too many others, Jack Kemp's passing serves as an unhappy reminder that the movement he so ably served has passed too.
It’s unfortunate for our country and Conservatives in particular that we don’t have enough Jack Kemps in the movement and more importantly in the Party that’s supposed to represent them.
R.I.P. Mr. Kemp.
"Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Democrat, said part of the reason that he left the Republican Party last week was disillusionment with its health-care priorities, and suggested that had the Republicans taken a more moderate track, Jack Kemp may have won his battle with cancer."
I think it's becoming more clear that Specter (and his compadre Biden) may have eaten a lot of lead paint as children. Maybe even as adults.
I know I'll be thought of as a jerk for saying this, but I remember Kemp for his hateful comments toward those who believe that illegal immigration is bad, and/or who believe that immigration overall should be restricted. He equated us with xenophobes. http://www.wrnha.org/Issues%20News%20Articles/Immigration/immigrant_nation.htm
I can't understand why conservatives would mourn the passing of such a vile demagogue, someone who used the language of Berkeley radicals to dismiss those of us who think that illegal immigration is wrong, or that, even with regard to legal immigration, you can sometimes have too much of a good thing. I don't think any decent person could say such horrible things.
