 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
May 6, 2009
/ 12 Iyar 5769
The endlessness of Jack Kemp
By
Roger Simon
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Jack Kemp was a man of enthusiasms. He was passionate, erudite, articulate — and often endless.
Informed before the 1987 straw poll in Ames, Iowa, that he had to limit his remarks to 15 minutes, he complained: "It takes me an hour and a half to watch '60 Minutes'!"
Yet his speeches had great energy even at great length, and when Bob Dole needed a running mate in 1996, energy is what got Kemp on the ticket.
I thought about this when John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate last year. Just as Jack Kemp's selection injected the Republican National Convention with an immediate boost of adrenaline in San Diego, so did Sarah Palin's selection immediately lift spirits in St. Paul.
Both presidential candidates seemed a little tired and a little shopworn by the time they got to their conventions, both running mates were more appealing to certain parts of the party than was the nominee, and neither running mate was particularly happy or accomplished in his role as second banana.
For Dole and Kemp, it was a marriage made in hell. Dole believed in balanced budgets; Kemp believed in tax cuts. (They also did not like each other, Kemp having endorsed Steve Forbes in the primaries.) And Kemp's debate performance — one of the few real jobs a vice presidential candidate has — against Al Gore was not good (and may have given Gore false confidence when he faced George W. Bush in their 2000 debates).
While Kemp once referred to himself as a "bleeding-heart conservative" — he was a proponent of immigration reform, tenant ownership of public housing and civil rights — he could also be a full-throated conservative on certain issues.
I first saw that side of him, along with his fervent speaking style, at an Iowans for Life convention at the Best Western Starlight Village in Des Moines in September 1987, when he was beginning his presidential campaign.
Kemp, wearing a red rose as an anti-abortion symbol, delivered his address full blast. "We meet for one of the great events of the 20th century, the reversal of Roe v. Wade!" he shouted. "It won't be a month before that Supreme Court has a pro-family, pro-life justice in Robert Bork! He's gonna win! He's gonna win! I'm a little bit disappointed that the White House is trying to sell him as a moderate. He's a conservative! What's wrong with that? We want conservatives! I will appoint pro-life, pro-family, pro-Judeo-Christian judges to all courts if I am elected president!"
He never got close to getting elected president or even to the Republican nomination. After serving 18 years in the House of Representatives, he became President George H.W. Bush's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, where Kemp approached the job, according to Jason DeParle, writing in The New York Times Magazine, "with an odd set of outside talents and peculiarities. Kemp brought unusual devotion and eloquence to his crusade. But he also brought a grab bag of marginal ideas and a personal style that alienated some of the allies he most needed. Chief among them was George Bush."
Kemp often could not help himself, which he admitted. "Talking once about how he planned to seek better relations with Sen. Barbara Mikulski," DeParle wrote, "Kemp leaned back and stuck a finger down his throat, as if gagging on the very thought. 'I mean, my body language is worse than anybody else's, you know,' Kemp said. 'I can't hide my feelings.'"
An inability to hide one's feelings is often a hindrance in politics, and so it was for Jack Kemp. But he died still true to his feelings on Saturday at age 73, a man of his enthusiasms to the end.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on Roger Simon's column by clicking here.
Roger Simon Archives
© 2009, Creators Syndicate
|
