Over at National Review the normally sensible Jay
Nordlinger has for some undetermined reason abruptly gone off the
rails.
In a piece nominally defending Mitt Romney — “The
Superb Mitt Romney” — Nordlinger makes the case that Romney
was a whole lot better than his post-election critics are
suggesting.
Fair enough. While we were Romney critics in this corner during
the primaries — skeptical that yet another moderate Republican in
the mold of McCain, Dole, Ford, Bush 43 in 1992 and on back to
Dewey and Willkie etc. — could win, Governor Romney did in fact
have some good moments during the campaign. Two of them the
selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate and his performance in
that first debate with President Obama. As is true with presidents,
history debates the performances, contributions and careers of
losing presidential nominees forever — William Jennings Bryan,
Barry Goldwater, and George McGovern come to mind.
This applies to Romney as well. So Nordlinger’s defense of
Romney was fine.
Abruptly, however, Nordlinger launches into a mind-boggling rant
about the late Jack Kemp.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, it needs be said that I
— like a lot of other people — was enormously privileged to work
for Kemp, in my case when he was Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development. I also had the opportunity to work for Ronald Reagan,
Kemp’s one-time boss (when the young Buffalo Bills quarterback did
an off-season stint as a special assistant to then-Governor Reagan)
and longtime political ally and friend.
So.
Nordlinger starts off his anti-Kemp rant by saying that in “the
first week of December, there was something called the Kemp
Foundation Leadership Award Dinner.” Hmmm. Indeed. While I was
invited but alas was unable to attend, this is becoming an annual
feature for Kemp’s friends, family and former colleagues.
You can find the Kemp Foundation here and read
about the dinner, which featured a former Kemp staffer by the name
of Paul Ryan and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. The Foundation
dinner, and indeed everything connected to it is about promoting
Jack Kemp’s vision of “advancing the universal values of the
American Idea of growth, freedom, democracy and hope.”
It was a vision that was famously shared with Kemp’s friend
Ronald Reagan.
Writes Nordlinger:
Around the time of this Kemp dinner, the refrain was, “Oh, Jack,
oh, Kemp, where have you gone? We need you. Why can’t today’s
Republican party be like Jack Kemp?”
Let me tell you something: There was a lot to admire about Jack
Kemp. But he was also a flake. Or rather, he had a big ol’ streak
of flakiness. His enthusiasms could be shallow and embarrassing. In
the 1990s, he was complaining that the Clinton administration was
being far too beastly to that misunderstood Saddam Hussein.
And he was not so hot a politician. Could he get elected
dog-catcher, outside of Buffalo, where he had been a football hero?
On the 1996 ticket, he proved maybe the worst candidate in memory.
Bob Dole, at the top of the ticket, who everyone says was a lousy
candidate, was much, much better than his running mate. Much.
Moreover, Kemp would never run for anything — anything besides
president and vice president. He would never run for senator or
governor. Would never challenge Moynihan or Cuomo. Would not stick
his neck out in this way. He preferred to swan around Washington,
being a celebrity and whatnot.
Fine — we all make choices. I’m not exactly setting the world on
fire. But Kemp as our role model? In my view, the dumped-on Romney
is much the more impressive man.”
Gee. Where to begin?
It takes nothing away from Mitt Romney to say that Jack Kemp
was, as I noted
here when Kemp’s fight with cancer was first announced, one of
the most important figures in American history. If there is any
doubt about this, all one has to do is look at the time and energy
Barack Obama has devoted to repealing the Reagan/Kemp legacy of
lower taxes, economic growth and freedom. Every last word uttered
by the President along these lines is evidence all by itself of the
impact Jack Kemp had in his public career. If Jack Kemp had not had
that impact, it is certainly fair to say there would be no Barack
Obama. One doesn’t get elected president and devote every minute of
one’s agenda to undoing something that had no impact.
Jack Kemp was a member of the House. Congressmen have a hard
time gaining traction in Washington unless they age into old bull
status and become committee chairman. The number of people from the
House who have made substantial, nation-changing, world-changing
contributions in American history can be counted on one hand. In
fact, the only other name that comes to mind is Congressman James
Madison of Virginia, he who used his position in the House to
sponsor the Bill of Rights to the Constitution.
One could go on — and if Jack Kemp were here he would
go on. He won a fond nickname as the Republican Hubert Humphrey for
his utter inability to say something in ten minutes when he could
say it in sixty.
There’s no intention here to dump on Governor Romney. He is, as
Nordlinger notes, “one of the brightest, most capable, most
admirable men ever to run for president.”
But it is fair to say that thus far in his public life as
governor and presidential nominee Romney isn’t even close to having
the lasting impact Jack Kemp made in American history.
Jack Kemp — and yes I confess to not just casting an eye to his
actual and very considerable role in American history but to just
plain missing an old boss who was nothing if not the
personification of optimism, energy and the American “can do”
spirit — was everything a young American politician (and some old
ones) could and should aspire to be.
He was, without ever laying claim to the Oval Office, America’s
quarterback.
Oh that he were here today to carry the case against Barack
Obama and his backward-looking, class-envying dreams of spreading
poverty everywhere.
But, it wasn’t to be. Jack Kemp is gone.
While it may drive Jay Nordlinger crazy, the good news is that
Jack’s spirit and example lives on. His friends and admirers, those
who knew him and loved him and those who never knew him but
understand in their bones what he was about, are still here — and
we all know what to do.
As the old quarterback’s friend President Reagan liked to
say:
“It CAN be done.”
Enough said.
