- Home
- About Us
- Contributors
- Departments
- Topics
- Back Issues
- Weekly Archives
- AmSpecBlog
- Subscribe
- Newsletter
- Advertise
- Donate
- Contact Us
- Daily Digest
- Templeton Essays
In Memoriam
The Final Completion
Jack Kemp was, in the words of Hendrik Hertzberg of the liberal flagship the New Republic, "a species of miracle I don't pretend to understand."
Well, conservatives of my age understood Kemp very well, in the very marrow of our bones, but even for us he seemed a species of miracle. Nobody this side of Ronald Reagan ever inspired us so, and nobody then alive (i.e., nobody short of James Madison) so shaped our thinking. Nobody, not even Reagan himself, infused our cause with such infectious energy as Kemp did. And nobody did more to make clear that conservative ideals, if rightly enunciated and understood, are aimed at serving not a narrow slice of the public but the whole electorate, including the poor, the black, the Hispanic, the day laborers, and the low-income workers striving for a better life.
For years I kept a huge file labeled simply "Kemp" that moved with me from job to job. It was filled with written copies of Kemp's speeches, articles about Kemp, list of policy proposals by Kemp -- and even a lengthy letter from me to Kemp in late February of 1992, never mailed (political developments overtook it before I actually sent it), outlining in great detail a strategy for him to gently shove then-President GHW Bush aside and wrest the Republican nomination from both Bush and challenger Pat Buchanan. (Kemp rejected similar entreaties that year from numerous people who actually had the political "stroke" to help back it up.)
There was, of course, no similar "Dole" file or "Quayle" file or "Lott" file or even a "Gingrich" file.
And I was far from alone in my enthusiasm. Young conservatives from the late 1970s through the early 1990s had no doubt, none at all, that Kemp was -- philosophically and attitudinally -- Reagan's obvious heir. It wasn't just that Kemp (way back in the fall of 1976) had been the first one to sell Reagan on supply-side economics. It was that in his views on the Cold War, on the sanctity of life, on the eradication of poverty, and of America's greatness and exceptionalism and unlimited future, Kemp and Reagan were on the same page -- and Kemp had an ability to sell those views to communities that sometimes would not listen to Reagan at all.
Sure, Reagan's diaries showed that he felt Kemp could be a real annoyance at times. And that was fine: Kemp could annoy almost everybody. Even his public failings, and they were significant, were the failings of a great man and a great spirit -- somebody too enthused about admirable ideals for his own good. He had a need to be the center of attention. He had a nervous energy about him that could be off-putting. He often spoke at too great a length, turning meetings into his own personal filibusters. He could get way too preachy and, especially after 1992, too apt to insinuate that his listeners were less morally or philosophically enlightened than he. When he was the Republican nominee for vice president in 1996, for instance, he did his ticket no favors by doing things like going into private, big-donor meetings at Georgia country clubs and hectoring them about their collective racial insensitivity or even outright racism.
But Kemp's lack of discretion about causing needless offense also manifested itself in a willingness to dare giving offense for purposes both worthwhile and timely. At the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, for example -- the one caricatured by the establishment media as being filled with fear and hate -- he had the almost impish gall to tell the assembled delegates that history is "on the side of those liberal democratic ideals which gave birth to our nation." Of course, conservative ideals are indeed "liberal" and (broadly speaking) "democratic," at least in the classical sense of the words. But to use those words approvingly at a conservative Republican convention was to risk being terribly misunderstood and even unpopular. Only Kemp could get away with such a bold -- and appropriate -- turn of phrase.
By that speech's end, though, he was using "liberal" and "Democrat" in their modern political senses: "My fellow Americans, the liberal Democrats just don't get it. They don't understand that you can't create more employees without first creating more employers, that you can't have capitalism without capital, and we can't expect people to defend property rights when they're denied access to property."
Good stuff, that.
In the same speech, he fought the dominant media narrative that Soviet Communism just faded out of existence of its own accord. "Communism didn't fall," Kemp insisted. "It was pushed. It was our ideas that did the pushing."
And that is what Jack Kemp was, more than anything else: a pusher of ideas. Urban homesteading. Enterprise zones. Tenant management of public housing. Capital gains tax cuts. Welfare reform based on work incentives and incentives for families to stay together. Housing tax credits. Escrow savings accounts. Housing vouchers and portable rent subsidies. "Weed and Seed." School choice. Health savings accounts. Across-the-board tax cuts. Rollback of Communism -- including particular Kemp leadership against Communists in Latin America. (Kemp once cleverly described his and Reagan's approach as "'supply-side' foreign policy: the liberation of Grenada, the Strategic Defense Initiative and support for the Contras in Nicaragua.")
Mostly, though, Kemp was dedicated to creating more wealth not due to love of lucre but for the right reasons. He was fond of noting that free-market progenitor Adam Smith was a professor of moral philosophy. And, in a 1985 speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he explained what economics had to do with moral concerns:
[Our] vision relies on free enterprise because of the possibilities for fulfillment that it opens for ourselves and our children. American has always been the one place on Earth where you could climb as high or as far as your efforts and God-given talent could take you. To be sure, this is not the only aspect, or even the most important aspect, of life, because man does not live by bread alone. But he does not live without it. Material prosperity frees us to turn our attention to higher things. Opportunity means more than individual self-fulfillment: not just good work, but also good works. Wages and the saving of wages are not just the means of amassing personal comforts. They mean being able to meet your obligations to our family, provide your children with hope for a better life, and pass on the fullness of life to others. They mean better homes -- and better family life. Better schools -- and better education. Loving your neighborhood -- and loving your neighbor.
Jack Kemp, with his unmatched generosity of spirit, loved his neighbors more thoroughly and palpably than almost any public figure of recent generations. And he did it with a deep [Presbyterian] faith in higher things. Saturday night, his family put out this statement:
Jack Kemp passed away peacefully shortly after 6 o'clock this evening, surrounded by the love of his family and pastor, and believing with Isaiah, "My strength and my courage is the Lord."
For nearly 74 years, the Lord blessed us all with the life of Jack Kemp -- a man whose own strength and courage must have pleased the Lord he loved.
Comments
Leave a Comment
Are you in a mob?
The Democrats say Obamacare opponents are a mob. Are they right?
Participating in this survey will subscribe you to the American Spectator email newsletter. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Appleby| 5.4.09 @ 6:57AM
Jack Kemp was more liberal than John McCain, who is regularly excoriated on these pages. He was for property *ownership* by people who had neither money nor the prospect of mony, long before President Bush started No Homeowner Left Behind. I lived in Buffalo during the 1970s gas crisis and heard Jack Kemp advocating a 50 cent per gallon gas tax even as his fellow Buffalonians and indeed people all over Western New York were making the RoboGas station in Fort Erie, Canada the busiest station in the entire world. He had a tendresse for poor people that made him advocate on their behalf without taking a good hard look at what caused them to be poor.
He harangued us long after he had convinced us.
Mr. Kemp was admired by Western New Yorkers because he had played football, and because they really only like and trust people who were born in Western New York. I moved to Atlanta when unemployment in Buffalo reached 22%, and I never heard anybody in Atlanta cheering for Jack Kemp. Being football mad, upon mention of his name, they would say *Didnt he used to play bawl?* and that was pretty much it.
He was a fine man and good at bawl. And I am sorry he is gone. Nevertheless, he was more liberal than John McCain.
William Castor| 5.4.09 @ 8:58AM
Jack "we're all children or God" Kemp is now finding out that only those that are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Holy Spirit would never lead anyone to say that "we're all children of God.
frost| 5.4.09 @ 9:10AM
Mr. Hillyer touched on it a bit, but (in my not-so-humble opinion) without sufficient elaboration.
In the meantime, Michael Gerson in the WaPo ignored it completely - - what I view as Kemp's finest accomplishment, something that achieved 'way too little attention and never came to fruition, his very wonderful suggestion that all that ugly, subsidized "Public Housing" be turned-over and sold at very, very low prices to those low income people who might then achieve the "pride of ownership" and actually Take Care of the apartments/buildings/property in which they lived - - 'cause there is NOTHING like Ownership to turn a sorry situation into a potentially Great one.
They just might stop trashing their neighborhoods? What a concept!
Perhaps this very substantial (and WONDERFUL) idea/suggestion (which was never acted upon, darn it) might be brought up again and, just maybe, get enacted, eventually. So far it's been totally ignored by Republicans as well as the demented bunch on the left.
I doubt if it will ever get the much needed attention it deserves, especially in Obama's socialist world, but, perhaps - someday...
frost| 5.4.09 @ 9:20AM
A necessary addition -- as a Libertarian-leaning independent Independent, no, I certainly don't advocate the aforementioned "public housing" debacle - - BUT, since the government is already "in the business" and will never extricate itself from screwing-around in areas where it doesn't belong (not covered by our Constitution), his suggestion of Private Ownership appears to be the only practical solution -- if, indeed, one does exist.
Ned| 5.4.09 @ 10:09AM
"Man does not live by bread alone. But he does not live without it. "
I love that line, sounds Roman to me.
John Ritholz| 5.4.09 @ 10:45AM
Great comment by Appleby. I really liked Jack Kemp, but the loathing of John McCain by many on the right is crazy. God bless Jack Kemp, but shame on the McCain haters.
mt| 5.4.09 @ 10:57AM
Kemp understood: you can't have limited government without strong natural families.
Oldefarte| 5.4.09 @ 11:55AM
Quin's [as usual] great article lamented a leader of the conservative cause, of which there have been many. The problem for conservatives and the Republican Party now is that Democrats have succeeded in thoroughly convincing, not only typical governmental welfare recipients, but also their bleeding heart wantabe governmental providers [moderates voters] of welfare as well, that the liberal philosophy of government management is the only true answer for the problems of America. Until conservatives [and either the Republican Party or another yet unformed grouping] can succeed in convincingly educating the voting masses otherwise; Obama, Kennedy, Kerry, Schumer, Pilosi, Rangle, Conyers, Reid, and crew will continue to have the upper hand politically. Liberals and Democrats provide ANSWERS, even though same are ludicrous, stupid and perpetual-slavery oriented, due to their chaining [over a lifetime] their believers to government handouts. These liberals' ideas are self-serving and dictatorial and intended to maintain their political hold over the recipients of provided governmental welfare payments. Conservatives have to somehow un-brainwash these liberal constituents into knowing that conservative principles will eventually empower them to provide for themselves and their families, so that they won't be forever enslaved/beholdened to government handouts. Kemp's ideas were directed toward that philosophy, but unfortionately he was not able to convince enough followers that this form of conservatism would succeed. As Quin and others have said here, it's truly a sad day, since Jack Kemp is no longer with us.
Ryan| 5.4.09 @ 12:15PM
Oldefarte -
I heartily agree. We've been branded the "party of no," without being able to turn it around into a positive moniker. I've heard some answers proffered, but they get little press outside of talk radio.
I don't mind being the "party of no," but someone in DC needs to figure out how to properly re-brand the phrase and also come up with proactive solutions that limit government.
Thomas| 5.4.09 @ 1:21PM
Jack Kemp was simply a Progressive. He was for "limited" socialism, not an expansion of the "conservative" agenda of rule of law. And for that, he was beloved in the '70's and '80's. Since the mid-90's, he has been largely ignored by all but the Progressive Republicans who long for the Good Old Days. Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2 largely made Kemp unimportant, except as a personality. For Kemp, at bottom, offered nothing that they didn't, except more liberal Progressivism . So we say so long to Jack Kemp. For some he was a hero. For others, simply another politician. But, his death does not mark the end of what he so ardently espoused; Progressivism.
Quin| 5.4.09 @ 2:47PM
Thomas,
I must take strong issue with you, good sir. Kemp was no liberal, and progressive only in the non-political sense. Kemp offered a heck of a lot that neither Bush did; that's why the first Bush marginalized him so much during his administration. Kemp was a leader on just about every conservative issue except right to work and Social Security private accounts. And while he clearly was not primarily motivated by keeping spending in check, he actually was far more of a fiscal conservative than not; he voted mostly right on fiscal issues, but just didn't like talking about them because he said it sounded like telling people to eat their spinach. But I guarantee you that without Kemp, most of the conservative triumphs we take for granted would have gone by the wayside.
Pingback| 5.4.09 @ 3:11PM
The Final Completion - Spectator.org | Log Cabin Kit Builder links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
remluci| 5.4.09 @ 9:55PM
May Jack Kemp rest in peace. God bless you sir, a grateful country thanks you and will miss your leadership in earnest.
Dan| 5.4.09 @ 10:41PM
Why is it that liberals and "progressives" always try to claim dead conservative leaders? Their narrative always goes something like this: "[dead conservative] leader was progressive and would have more in common with [current liberal candidate] than [current conservative leader." What a joke.
Pingback| 5.5.09 @ 2:54AM
Homesteading - I Go To Some Hollow - Popmatters.com « Homesteading links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.5.09 @ 7:33AM
Carey (surname) » Nickelodeon Latin America links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
chris b| 5.5.09 @ 9:20AM
A fine post about a man of the highest caliber heart. I drove around New Jersey in the mid 80s with "KEMP 88" licence plates, so I obviously fell under the spell that Quin identifies.
He had a key advisor who was a crypto-Rousseauian, so sometimes that would emerge in some of his ideas. But on balance the guy was a huge positive force for liberty and the ideas of the Declaration and the Party of Lincoln.
God bless Jack Kemp and his family.
Thomas| 5.5.09 @ 10:32AM
Quin,
As you have just acknowledged, Jack Kemp was a Progressive. So much so, that he was labelled "a bleeding-heart conservative. In fact, as his continual battles with Bush 1 over his HOPE plan revealed, socially he was even more liberal than H.W. He did support tax-cuts, being one of the Congressional leaders in Reagan's first tax cuts, and did support conservative business legislation such as deregulation. But, it is impossible to separate the man's social agenda from more conservative legislative measures that he supported.
It is becoming fashionable to label social liberals, such as Reagan, both Bushes, and even John McCain as conservatives simply because they support lower taxation, national defense and, at times, smaller government. But, at base, they are not conservatives. They tend to off-set the positive fiscal and governmental policies that they espouse with negative social policies. The best that can be said of them is that they are Progressives. Jack Kemp was a good Republican, a good American, but not necessarily a conservative.
I am sorry to see him go, I am just not yet prepared to grant him Conservative sainthood.
Paul Crowley| 5.5.09 @ 11:36AM
I’m sick of the terms liberal and conservative, that crept into American politics in the 1930s and 1950s, respectively. At this point in time, we sound like late 19th century Britain or a banana republic. The names of our major political parties (Democrat and Republican) are no longer descriptive. It’s been over a century since political parties named Populist or Progressive existed. The Prohibition party still has a descriptive name.
I suppose that the Libertarian Party does, more or less. Although it’s a synthetic creature that sneaked in with the old SDS anti-Vietnam War alliance, founded in what 1971? The term libertarian is not a common one in American history. The libertarians are a synthesis in like manner to Marx’s communism of 1848, and as sophisticated (the same British economics that Marx used, merged with bits and pieces of political parties and movements that range from the pre-1865 abolitionist movements, to the short-lived Confederacy, American Populism, to the wobblies, to Spanish anarchists and their Libertarian Communism to the American isolationist movement of about 1939-41: All used to rationalize elements of eugenics and advocate a brutal miserable economic theory as patriotic, and liberating. . . . It is sophisticated (in an Orwell "doublethink" manner). Their social, political, and religious organizations and econonomic policies organizations (think tanks like CATO) have grown to prominence amazingly fast. The Libertarian Party itself is a curious “grass roots” effort and seems little more than a means of commercial advertisement of the name (a party that has steadily grown, organization wise, but not popularity wise, and that now runs numerous candidates in just about every representative and senate district, federal and state, and municipalities across the country, with its candidates unable to break the few hundred votes barrier each election). Hence the libertarians having to behave like the parasites that they are, and infiltrating both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Should the G.O.P. simply drop the pretense of the name republican and rename itself the Conservative Party? A champion of 19th Century European liberalism within the new 'global commonwealth" (i.e. The American-Anglo-French bloc of countries, developed 1946-present).
Pingback| 5.5.09 @ 12:17PM
May God Bless Jack Kemp | THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Oldefare| 5.5.09 @ 12:25PM
To Thomas and Quin: Both of your respective points are correct, but I think that the essential point is that Kemp's philosophy was accurate; in that, with the current deminished status of the Republican Party and/or conservatives, the GOP needs to open up its doors to some of the current constituencies now being served by the Democratic Party. Suggestions have been made that this point of emphasis be Hispanics, and possibly a legal/modified approach to the GOP's current anti-immigration platform. Hispanics, due to their traditional Catholic and religious heritiges and beliefs, could be eventually solicited into the GOP's membership; and since they are an ever-increasing source of this country's population increases, could represent a possible sourse of the reclaiming of majority party status by the GOP. There is going to have to be an "additude adjustment" among the social conservative, "white-only", country-club segment of the party before this could have any chance of being accompolished though; and as long as this elietist segment is allowed to dominate the politics of the GOP's thoughts, sadly they will remain a minority party and subservient to the Democratic Party!!!!
Moose| 5.5.09 @ 2:34PM
I had a Buchanan file, a number of them in fact, and still have them. I did not have a Kemp file; he never really inspired me. But, may he rest in peace and best to his family.
Thomas| 5.5.09 @ 2:49PM
I see that the thread is drifting away from Jack Kemp and into the "let's expand the Republican Party to include Democrat voters" theory of voter participation. Let;s take a little trip down memory lane.
In 198o and 1984, did Ronald Reagan run as a moderate? In 1988, did George H.W. Bush run as a moderate? In 1994, did the Republicans dominate Congress by running as moderates? In 2000 and 2004 did George W. Bush run as a moderate? The answer to all of these questions is no. In all these instances of Republican victory, the winning candidates ran as conservatives with a conservative agenda. They won because conservative voters voted for them. Unfortunately, all of these candidates, eventually, governed as over-all moderates; being conservative on some issues and liberal on others. As long as the Republican Party insists on running candidates who are more closely identified with liberal Democrat policies than with conservative policies, it will continue to lose offices. But, the choice is entirely up to the Republican Party. Conservatives are not going to change their beliefs for expediency.
BD57| 5.5.09 @ 4:26PM
The effort to turn Kemp into some kind of liberal (or "progressive", if you prefer) is amusing.
Kemp was all for government policy which enhanced the opportunity of individuals to better themselves - that's why he supported tax cuts & deregulation ... and selling public housing to the occupants.
Unlike contemporary liberalism, Kemp did not tell Americans that they needed government's protection from someone (banks, corporations, etc.) or that government should "be there" to insure they do not fail. Kemp was an "equality of opportunity, not equality of results" guy - which, in this day and age, is 180 degrees out of phase with "social liberalism" in action.
Put another way - Kemp was never a "Mommy Party" guy .... he didn't think voters needed to be protected from themselves.
BD57| 5.5.09 @ 4:30PM
Oldefare:
The "white only, country club" component of the Republican Party is NOT "socially conservative" - by & large, they'd prefer it if the "social conservatives" went away.
Perhaps you should spend some time getting to know some social conservatives .... find out who they really are.
Pingback| 5.5.09 @ 8:10PM
Club for Growth news tribute to Jack Kemp | The Kansas Progress links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Oldefarte| 5.6.09 @ 12:10PM
BD57 [Perhaps you should spend some time getting to know some social conservatives .... find out who they really are]----I was born a "social conservative", raised and grew up as such, and am now [at 63 years old] a "social" [along with being a fiscal and every other type of]conservative. How old are you, and does your experience compare? Don't lecture me, kid----you're not qualified, okay? As to yours and Thomas' theory about the Republican Party NOT having to change, let me remind all of you that the only true conservative political candidate that "WON" the White House was Ronald Reagan, okay? Kemp didn't win, Goldwater didn't win, Ginguich didn't win, etc----get the POINT? If you need assistance, the object is to WIN political office[ie the White House], and the Republicans now are loosing offices that they formerly held, due to Democrats WINNING same. Again, if you missed my earliar point, Republicans possibly need to open themselves up to groups such as Hispanics, who are traditionally extremely religious, hardworking, and would be susceptable to joining Republicans if the right message was provided to them; and THAT is precisely what Kemp's message was [to empower the disadvantaged, ie Hispanics, with ownership of property, businesses,etc through the RP principles]!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pingback| 5.7.09 @ 4:29PM
Homesteading - Misleading mail? - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin « Homesteading links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.8.09 @ 1:22AM
The Final Completion | PowerTowneDistro.com links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Trackback| 7.4.09 @ 12:40AM
Effective treatment for genital herpes using Valtrex , on Effective treatment for genital herpes using Valtrex , links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
wholesale shoes| 7.9.09 @ 2:29AM
We are professional cheap kids shoes online store .We provide Nike shoes cheap ,Nike air jordan,cheap kids clothing
cheap womens clothing,Nike shoes online store,Nike shoes cheap,Nike shoes for kids,air jordan sneakers,nike air jordan,air jordans,brand shoe,shoes brand, dropship Nike shoes , brand clothes,brand clothes ,shoes brand,cheap kids clothing for cheap wholesale Air Jordans shoes for kids & women.
Wholesale Lingerie| 9.5.09 @ 9:45PM
sexy lingerie lingerie
Wedding Dresses| 9.9.09 @ 10:19AM
Very good article written byWedding Dresses
Designer Wedding Gowns
ah
uggboots| 10.15.09 @ 10:18PM
Your site is excellent, and I really like.
In the present lively world, food and clothing put on the line in our life have already to obtain the sublimation, life needs the entertainment,each kinds of color and design are finitely looks like the young women's hairstyle , every day them wearing uggboots shose