In Memory of a Good Politician and a Great Man

One of my favorite politicians died recently. I had been a Jack Kemp fan in my youth. I supported him for president in 1988, even though I couldn’t vote yet. I figured out years later that I had fundamental disagreements with him on tax policy, but that wasn’t why I was such a fan.

Maybe I am just a sucker for Republicans who used to play football. I am also a fan of Steve Largent and J.C. Watts. But I think there is something about playing football which enables you to interact with people who most Republicans don’t. As Kemp, a former quarterback, once pointed out, he had a vested interest in defending those who protected him on the field. He had an interest in looking out for the interests of those who he showered with after practices and games. Kemp developed a concern for those who may not have come from the same place as him, but became comrades nonetheless.

I liked Jack Kemp because he was a conservative for the right reasons. He honestly believed that the policies he espoused would not just help the rich and powerful, but also the poor and downtrodden. His motivation for conservative policies was not to maintain or strengthen the status quo, but to revolutionize the capabilities of those who society had shut out. He opposed the old welfare systems not because he lived in fear of “welfare mothers”, but because he honestly wanted to find a way to break them out of the generational cycle of poverty.

When I used to identify myself as a conservative (I no longer identify as a conservative, nor as a liberal or a moderate), I took the Jack Kemp tact of explanation. I was a conservative because I believed the conservative policies were the best cures for the social mess of the underprivileged. That was a play from Kemp’s book. On a lot of issues, I still believe the conservative policies are better suited to breaking the poverty cycle than do the liberal policies of those that are supposedly standing up for the little guy.

I must admit that I did lose some respect for Kemp during the 1996 presidential campaign where he did what VP candidates are supposed to do and backed the positions of the head of the ticket. In this case, Bob Dole was the Republican nominee and supported the California initiatives that basically shut down Affirmative Action and decreased services for immigrants. These were positions I know Kemp opposed, but he still kept in lock step with Dole.

In his private life, though, Kemp won me back. One of my favorite stories involves an African-American friend of mine who met Kemp while my friend was a college student in 1997. Kemp was speaking at his school and my friend had the opportunity to meet with him one-on-one during the visit. My friend was born, bred, and raised Democrat. His grandfather was a democratic city alderman. My friend wanted to meet Kemp because his grandfather actually said good things about this white Republican. So my friend emailed Kemp before his arrival on campus and asked if he could set aside a few minutes for a conversation. Kemp replied that he would in exchange for a tour of the campus. That tour lasted four hours. My friend came away respecting Kemp more than his grandfather. Kemp didn’t come anywhere close to converting him to the Republican party, but my democratic friend and the republican politician found a lot of common ground on steps that could be taken in urban neighborhoods to start turning things around.

That’s who Jack Kemp was. He was a man of principle who believed strongly in what he believed in, but was able to reach out and work with others to find common ground. He sought to find real solutions for the real life difficulties of real people. Even though he had just recently been the Vice-Presidential candidate for one of the two major political parties, he took the time to spend an afternoon with a young man who did not agree with him on many issues so that they could find common ground. I, for one, will miss Jack Kemp and the civility and principle he brought with him to the political realm.

Souter Resigns

Justice Souter is planning to resign. I had heard rumblings of such from my friends in Washington. In spite of the fact that he is relatively young, I was not surprised by the announcement. Rumblings of his discontent with Washington life were not new. Now is the perfect opportunity for someone like Souter to leave. He can ensure that his replacement is someone who thinks like him. With a like-minded President and Democratic control in the Senate, it is unlikely Souter would be displeased with his successor.

As regards judicial philosophy, Souter and President Obama seem to be very similar (although the president, being a politician before he is a constitutional scholar, as kept many of his views hidden). It is likely that the president will nominate someone who thinks very much like Souter.

Honestly, I had expected Ginsburg or Stevens to leave first. That being said, I predicted that the next president, if a Democrat, would have three vacancies to fill in her/his first term. I didn’t think Souter would be first, though (my predictive abilities regarding Supreme Court resignations have never been that good).

So, who is most likely to receive the nomination? There are a number of schools of thought. President Bush tended to nominate people he personally trusted (remember Harriet Miers?). He got shot down by his ideological base. In Alito’s slot, since he couldn’t get Miers, he would have loved to get Alberto Gonzalez, but there was no way the conservatives would let him get that either. I honestly thought Alito’s spot would be taken by a Hispanic, woman, or both. Bush tried one of each, and each got shot down by his base.

Due to Court demographics and political realities for the Obama team, the leading contenders for the new opening are women and Hispanics. This makes Sonia Sotomayor automatically a leading candidate. She is well-respected, moderately liberal, grew up in the Bronx projects, and is a Hispanic woman. However, if President Obama goes with someone he knows and trusts, the leading candidate is probably Elena Kagan, the recently confirmed Solicitor General. A second leading candidate in the “people the president knows and trusts” pool would be Diane Wood, who is a former colleague of Obama’s at the University of Chicago. If the president really goes with someone he trusts rather than standard politics, one might see the unexpected nomination of Valerie Jarrett.

The interesting thing about all of these names I just mentioned is that none are “radical” by judicial standards. True, all of them would vote to uphold Roe v. Wade, but you can’t really imagine an Obama nominee not doing that. (One of these days I will write a blog describing the utter lunacy of Roe from a strictly legal standpoint, but that will have to wait.) But with the possible exception of Wood, none of the women mentioned here hold surprising or particularly controversial judicial views. This would make it very difficult for the Republicans in the Senate to successfully fight against them. They will try, but I don’t foresee any success. But who knows, I’ve been wrong many times when it comes to Supreme Court politics.