One Shot: Remembering Jack Kemp
Posted on May 4, 2009 at 10:15 pmAlthough I had certainly been interested in at least one presidential election previously, 1992 was the year I became politically aware. One of the moments that sticks out in the election year was late in the fall, probably October, I went on down to the local Bush campaign headquarters to volunteer.
I wasn’t all that keen on the President but I became very engaged in the election. I followed the Perot movement closely — until the billionaire embarrassed his supporters (my view at the time) and dropped out. After that, I guess I figured I’d finish up supporting the candidate who I most identified with at the time.
Anyway, this particular day sticks out because Jack Kemp was scheduled to come to town with the President and we volunteers where supposed to make preparations.
One of our tasks, one I will never forget, was to make signs. They gave us posterboard and markers and other such accessories and told us to get to work. You see, the signs were to appear amateur and homemade. And they were in a fashion, I suppose, but they were not for us to hold, not all of them anyway. They were to be handed out to those who would show up at the rally — to make them look like more animated supporters.
Here I was a sixteen year-old interested in getting involved in the process of politics and I am struck in the face with the reality that all those rallies I’d seen on television were carefully staged events. What I always had assumed were the signs of genuinely enthused supporters I learned instead were, at least in this case, the work of a few volunteers. A rather rude awakening at the time.
I admired Jack Kemp back then. He seemed like a different kind of Republican and I knew that I was looking for something different. And on that day in the fall of 1992, he and the President gave reasonably good speeches (at least they seemed so at the time) but I couldn’t shake the fact that no matter how good, decent or inspiring the politician the process was somehow rotten to the core. Turned out I knew far less than the half of it.
Another thing about 1992 and Jack Kemp that has gotten lost in many of the remembrances of him was that it was strongly rumored that Kemp had given seriously consideration to challenging President Bush in the primaries that year.
Kemp, of course, was driving force behind much of the Reagan economic program but his campaign for President had failed to catch fire in 1988 and thus Bush, not he, claimed the mantle of Reagan and the Presidency.
By 1992, it was clear to everyone that Bush was not Reagan’s heir and was a pretender to the throne. However, he was an incumbent and, as such, no “legitimate” potential candidate would risk their political career taking on the incumbent President of his own party, no matter what taxes he had raised or what legacy he had betrayed.
Of course, those “illegitimate” candidates that year, first Pat Buchanan and then Ross Perot, proved just how vulnerable the President was from the Right and the Center.
The country wanted change in 1992. Had Kemp summoned the courage to take down the President in the primaries he could have been that change.
There would have been no opportunity, no vacuum on the center-right for for a Ross Perot to exploit and the second-tier Democratic candidate Bill Clinton would have been faced not with a failed president of a tired generation but someone closer to his own generation.
Jack Kemp, had he had the intestinal fortitude to take on the President, would have had an even shot at victory as a cabinet secretary and former congressman where Pat Buchanan did not.
Jack Kemp had the opportunity to be President but he didn’t take it. He flinched. He failed to grab the brass ring. That is the lesson of Jack Kemp that the eulogizers ignore. In politics, it is very easy to put things off, to tell yourself that there will be other moments and other opportunities.
As much admiration Jack Kemp apparently had for Barack Obama, it is clear that they are very different people. Barack Obama in 2006 was a very green senator and young man. He had plenty of time to grow and attain big things but he saw that his moment was now. As imposing as Hillary Clinton would be in the primary, if the country was ever going to elect a progressive black Democrat it was going to be after eight years of George W. Bush. It had to be now.
Kemp had a similar moment in 1992 and he chose a different path. He chose to delay his moment until it was too late. That is what I remember about Jack Kemp above all else.
SEE ALSO:
Hunter Baker takes us back
The President pays his respects
Bruce Bartlett eulogizes his former boss
Matt Yglesias
NY Times Obit
Buffalo News
The Associated Press
Quin Hillyer
Matt Lewis gives his thanks
Glen Dean
Matt Hurtt
John Gizzi
Bill Bennett
Kemp the bomb thrower
Comments
11 Responses to “One Shot: Remembering Jack Kemp”
I remember my first time too. I was young, and I thought that compassionate conservatism was a political movement, not a campaign strategy. I feel so cheap and tawdry now. But I’ve learned my lesson.
Great post, AC.
[...] Paper’s Op-Ed writer, gives us a rare but welcome glimpse into his own political history with One Shot: Remembering Jack Kemp, his post about the 1992 presidential campaign and the glaringly absent candidate Jack Kemp: I [...]
[...] done, Mr. Kleinheider. Well done. (0) Comments Read [...]
Nice post. Thanks for sharing.
R.I.P. Mr. Kemp.
I don’t know if it was yout intention, but this post, which supposedly highlights a flaw, raises Mr Kemp in esteem in my eyes.
I must give full disclosure that Jack Kemp was about as close as one can get to being a political hero of mine.
It’s almost quaint - to see a man for whom his place in history was not something to be jealously grasped, but subservient to higher ideals - even if one of those ideals was the flawed “don’t jump in line”.
History always works itself out; Bill Clinton may have been popular, but his presidency, in retrospect, has turned out to be pretty inconsequential. What I mean is that there were no sea changes during his tenure, as happened under Bush II and now Obama. America just kind of took a vacation from history.
A placeholder presidency was beneath a man a great as Kemp. The times called for a man small of character but large ego.
Everything worked out as it was supposed to.
You may be correct in your suggestion that Mr. Kemp should have taken his shot, but my guess is that his best chance at the presidency was in 1988, and his decision not to run in 1992 was a realistic estimation of his chances of beating an incumbent.
Ronald Reagan made a valiant run at Gerald Ford in 1976 and fell short. Mr. Kemp likely foresaw that same result if he had run.
I am a passionate Democrat, but I respected Jack Kemp alot. Heck, I even went door to door for Dole/Kemp in ‘96 when I was 10 years old. Great story A.C.
Kleinheider was a Kemp fan? Slarti too? That’s who I supported in 1988. He really was a unique Republican. We need more like him.
The “Kemp the Bomb Thrower” piece is really good. That writer is onto something. Today’s environment is hostile to healthy debate and other sorts of jousting. If you don’t adhere to the conventional wisdom on immigration or the war on terror you are called names by the likes of Sean Hannity.