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.