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
Wrong Number
Posted on April 2, 2009 at 10:13 pmSomebody is fired:
“Do you have any hidden desires? If you feel like getting nasty, then you came to the right place,” said a suggestive-sounding woman.
The White House says an aide merely mistyped the 800-dial in number — a mistake not likely to happen again.
It’s a new administration, but an old problem: Some homeowners seeking mortgage relief from a Bush administration hotline in 2007 instead reached a Texas-based group that provides Christian education after President Bush slightly jumbled the correct number at a press briefing.
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Change The Elite Can Believe In
Posted on December 17, 2008 at 8:11 amBarack Obama’s elevation to the presidency may usher in a new dawn of dynasticism:
Barack Obama’s path to the presidency included beating what had been one of the nation’s most powerful families. But, in an unusual twist, his election last month is helping accelerate the trend toward dynasty politics.
His secretary of state will be Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former president. The Senate seat she’ll vacate is being pursued by Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of a president and the niece of two senators. Joe Biden’s Senate seat may go to his son Beau. Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, Obama’s pick for Interior Secretary, could end up being replaced by his brother, Rep. John Salazar.
And Obama’s own seat could go to the son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. – less likely now in light of developments in the Rod Blagojevich scandal – or to the daughter of Illinois’ current House speaker.
The Problem Solver
Posted on December 10, 2008 at 10:02 amPolitico profiles Lamar Alexander’s Chief of Staff, Tom Ingram:
Ingram says he means what he says about bipartisanship. For the past several years, Ingram — whom colleagues call a social butterfly — has put together a regular bipartisan breakfast for more than 60 chiefs of staff to discuss ways in which their bosses can work together. The breakfasts have evolved into dinners and drinks and have given Ingram a sort of rock star status among Hill staffers.
“I am nuts about Tom Ingram,” said Tamara Luzzatto, chief of staff to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. “He has invested his precious time, wonderful sense of humor and terrific leadership skills into serving as a co-shepherd of a bipartisan flock of Senate chiefs of staff who hope, like he does, that by getting to know one another and learning from one another, we just might work more effectively together.
“I just wish he weren’t as good at electing Republicans,” Luzzatto said.
Rep. Steve Cohen Endorses Hillary Clinton For Secretary Of State
Posted on November 16, 2008 at 6:46 pmThe Memphis congressman explains why the woman he once compared to Glen Close’s character in Fatal Attraction would be a good shaper of foreign policy in an Obama administration:
If President Obama does indeed select Senator Clinton as his Secretary of State, he will be invoking Lincoln’s legacy in a profound way; and in the opinion of this Congressman, there could be no wiser choice for the post.
During his first year in office, President Obama will likely need to keep a laser’s focus on domestic issues as we try to climb out of the economic hole dug under eight years of President Bush’s financial policies. Therefore, it is absolutely vital to select someone with the experience, toughness, and depth of knowledge to handle increased authority in foreign policy and deliver on President Obama’s promise to the world; and who could be more qualified to manage the duties of the nation’s top diplomat than the internationally revered junior Senator from New York? She brings two decades worth of foreign policy experience, much of it on the front lines as First Lady during one of the most peaceful eras in U.S. history. Furthermore, she brings instant prestige and credibility to the position; no foreign leader would ever feel diminished sitting in the presence of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I have had the privilege to know the Clintons since their days in neighboring Arkansas, and I know of no one more intelligent and capable of tackling the enormous challenges we face abroad than Hillary Rodham Clinton.
SEE ALSO:
Mediaverse
Memphis Flyer
Replace Biden With Hillary
Posted on September 18, 2008 at 1:32 pmAnd in the process, turn this election into more of a circus than it already is. That’s what Katie Granju want to do.
I’d honestly like to say that her scenario would never work. Personally, I’d like to think that working class whites and women were not that politically malleable. But the premium placed on narrative and branding has never been higher in politics than they are right now.
Who knows, it just might work. As much as I’d like it not to be true, this election has become a battle of celebrity. First, it was Obama, now it is Palin.
Indeed what could top the ultimate celebrity ticket of Hillary and Obama?
In this political climate, in this popular culture? Probably nothing.
Sexist Steve?
Posted on September 11, 2008 at 9:36 amThe Guerilla women are starting to wonder about Tennessee’s most progressive congressman:
What is the matter with Steve Cohen? First he fires off a grossly sexist shot at Hillary Clinton. Now’s he’s exalting Obama by comparing him to Jesus and denigrating Sarah Palin by comparing her to Pontius Pilate. This is the best defense of community organizers Cohen can come up with? Already the embarrassing video clip below is running on Fox News. Does Cohen enjoy embarrassing the state of Tennessee?
Casual Friday: Hillary Out By The End Of The Week
Posted on June 4, 2008 at 6:33 pmSo says the Fox News:
A senior Clinton adviser tells Fox’s Major Garrett that Hillary Clinton informed her campaign staff today that Friday is their last day of work and she will end her campaign on that day.
According a senior Democratic source on Capitol Hill, Clinton told a conference call with about 20 House Democratic supporters, that it was “time to bring the party together,” and acknowledged there were “two wings in the party right now,” and it was her obligation to “unite them.”
In that conference call with lawmakers Clinton did not announce a timeline of her withdrawal from the race but made it clear her campaign was drawing to a close.
When asked about being Obama’s running mate, Clinton said, according to a senior Democratic source that she “was not campaigning for the position but will do whatever she is asked to do to help the party win in November.”
Democratic sources have also said Clinton will suspend her campaign rather than close it down entirely. By suspending her campaign, Clinton retains nominal control of her delegates and can continue to raise money to pay off campaign debts and allow late primary states to finish up the process of electing pro-Clinton delegates to the convention.
SEE ALSO: Sharon Cobb
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That Ain’t Any Kind Of Concession Speech I Ever Heard Of
Posted on June 3, 2008 at 9:49 pm“Hey, baby, there ain’t no easy way out. Hey I will stand my ground. And I wont back down.”
Those were the words of Tom Petty piped in through the loudspeakers shortly after Hillary Clinton’s speech tonight in New York City. What this morning’s news was telling us might be be a concession speech turned out to be something else entirely.
What was it though? One of two things, one with her withholding her endrosement and concession one could interpret her speech as a warning to Obama.
“I understand that a lot of people are asking, what does Hillary want? What does she want? I want what I have always fought for in this whole campaign. I want to end the war in Iraq. I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want … the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, and to no longer be invisible.”
Sure, party unity is going to happen eventually but how quickly and to what extent is ultimately up to Hillary.
Was Clinton essentially saying to Obama, “Listen Hoss, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. You can either pick me as your Vice President and we can hold hands together as a ticket and I can become your defacto co-president or I can continue this campaign as “a listening tour” on how to best serve the interests of my popular vote-winning 18 million voters all the way to the convention.”
That, believe it or not, is the charitable view. The alternative is that tonight was not about unity this year. The alternative is that she doesn’t want the Veep the nomination or concessions on health care or any of that mess.
The alternative is that she is simply going to go as long as she can laying the groundwork for 2012. In the speech, you will notice, Clinton calls attention to her popular vote victory. You can quibble with it all you want. Note the uncommitted vote in Michigan. At the end of the day, though, what she says is true. More voters voted for her than any other candidate in a primary in history.
Is Hillary trying to undermine the nominee, Barack Obama, by trying to make herself Al Gore 2.0?
While many Democrats hang their belief that Gore was rightfully elected in 2000 on shenanigans in Florida many are just as emboldened by the fact that he won the popular vote. They are just as emboldened by an electoral college that they view as an illegitimate relic.
Democrats, after all, believe in Democracy. They believe in counting the votes. Clinton clearly reiterated this belief tonight. Many Democrats were clamoring for Al Gore in 2008 because they believed him to be a duly elected president denied victory by an unfair system in 2000, a system stacked against him.
With this speech is Hillary laying the groundwork for her own similar mythology as victim of a Democratic primary system flawly engineered to hand an unelectable candidate victory.
Was this speech not the last one in a defeated campaign for President but the first one in a campaign to become a legend. For if Barack Obama loses this election, there will be revisionism. History is written, they say, by those who have hanged heroes.
Democrats, in the 2000 campaign, were never really all that enthused by Al Gore but the circumstances of his defeat and his subsequent career after it allowed him, through his future actions, to create a new image. To become larger than life. Could not Hillary achieve the same thing?
All signs point to a Democratic victory in 2008. High gas prices, and unpopular war a sagging a economy. By no rights should a member of the incumbent party win this election. Hillary’s campaign might have been defeated tonight and along with it the imposing Clinton machine that has ruled the party since the 90s.
But if Obama loses the general, the circumstances of his primary victory Hillary may very well use to put the band back together with a new image more fierce than her jubilant enemies inside the party tonight could ever imagine.
UPDATE: From Ben Smith:
Her homepage, to which she directed supporters, asks supporters to send Hillary a “message of support”and to “stand with Hillary” — words of confrontation, not concession.
SEE ALSO:
Sadcox
Media Lizzy
Ben Smith
Big Boys react
Brendan Loy
Andrew Sullivan
National Journal
Parsing Clinton’s Speech
Defiance
Clinton Campaign Claims The Popular Vote Lead Over Barack Obama
Posted on June 1, 2008 at 2:53 pmClaim, of course, is the key word here:
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Bob Tuke’s McWherter Endorsement Implication
Posted on at 2:36 pmSean Braisted notes that in the same campaign email where Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bob Tuke hails his victory in an online poll as an “organizing test”, the campaign also attempts to subtly imply the endorsement of popular Governor Ned Ray McWherter.
Tuke met with Governor McWherter in West Tennessee this week. Tuke and Governor McWherter are old friends, and they talked in detail about how to beat Lamar Alexander in November. Both left the meeting feeling energized about how the Tuke v. Alexander match-up is coming together and they agreed that it’s time to “Take the Hill” on Election Day!
Now as Sean notes, the McWherters, both former Governor Ned and son, Mike, have donated to both Democratic candidates in the race and have issued no public endorsements. However, if one candidate did have a claim to be closer the “McWherter family” as it were, would it be Tuke or opponent Mike Padgett?
Mike Padgett and Gov. McWherter are both Hillary Clinton supporters serving on Clinton’s Tennessee Steering committee. Tuke served, until his announcement for the U.S. Senate, as Barack Obama’s Tennessee Political Director.
Speaking of the that steering committee list, another name would seem to jump out if one were going to play the “endorsement by association” game. Jed Brewer, currently the Padgett for Senate campaign manager, was also intimately involved in Mike McWherter’s abortive campaign for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate this cycle as well as running the incumbent-slaying campaign of state Senator Lowe Finney, a McWherter cousin.
Of course, none of this implies McWherter family endorsement either but it does provide a little context to the Tuke campaign’s attempt to shade a sitdown with an aging former Governor as an endorsement of candidacy.
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I Thought Al Gore Was Above Intramural Party Politics
Posted on May 30, 2008 at 7:05 pmFirst, he was an elder statesman. Then he was an elder statesman who supports Democratic nominees. Now, he’s an elder statesman who endorses Democratic Congressmen against their primary opposition. Why is it again that Gore won’t intercede in the Obama/Clinton race?
Former Vice President Al Gore has endorsed an Iowa congressman who faces a challenge from another Democrat in next week’s primary election. Gore has endorsed Congressman Leonard Boswell in his race against challenger Ed Fallon.
The Gore backing is being touted in Boswell advertising as a means of repeating an often-made complaint about Fallon. Back in 2000, Fallon endorsed independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader. At the time Fallon cited his frustration with Democratic nominee Gore, especially his decision to pick moderate Democrat Joe Lieberman as his runningmate.
Gore lent his name to a Boswell fundraising letter and announced that he and his wife, Tipper, had both given Boswell the maximum donation allowed. Boswell endorsed Gore and campaigned in Iowa with him in 1999 and 2000, and Gore referred to Boswell a “real Democrat” who “stood” by other Democrats “time and time again.”
I Can’t Even Picture Ross Perot Saying This
Posted on at 1:29 pmHillary Clinton on the state of the Democratic campaign for President:
“You can’t tell how far a frog will jump until you punch him.”
UPDATE: The Big Payback
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Coming Home To Momma
Posted on May 26, 2008 at 10:19 amThe Chicago Tribune warns against giving too credence to polling that indicates Barack Obama may have trouble picking up support from Hillary Clinton supporters in the general election:
Look at surveys from the 2000 campaign, for example. At one point, 51 percent of people who were strong McCain supporters in that year’s Republican primaries said they would support Democrat Al Gore in the general election. In November, though, they went largely for George W. Bush.
“It may be a completely different circumstance after the nomination is settled and people rally around the nominee,” Doherty said. “What you are getting is a snapshot when there are a lot of hard feelings.”
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Ignorance Or Ignorance?
Posted on May 23, 2008 at 5:32 pmBoth Aunt B. and Sean Braisted remark on a recent statement by Hillary Clinton on why she remains in the race for President:
“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing the idea of dropping out.
Braisted points out the historical inaccuracies implicit in the statement. Aunt B. thinks that the implication was something else entirely.
Personally, I’m not seeing what a whole lot of others are seeing. If you watch the whole tape and imagine yourself in the Q&A, I don’t see how you can think Clinton is saying, “I’m staying in ’cause, well, you never know.”
It’s inane. I’m not saying she’s never had the thought. I’m not saying she’s never prayed to the eight pound, six ounce, newborn baby Jesus that it happen. But she was not making that reference here, she was simply saying that Bobby Kennedy was still in it in June when he got shot, which she remembers and many remember because he got shot.
You can hate on Hillary for a lot of things and there are plenty of examples of her campaign race-baiting. On this one, she’s clean.
The fact that she is apologizing, however, makes her look guilty. Yes, she is apologizing to the Kennedys, not Obama, but that will make no difference. The talk will be that she implied she was waiting for someone to ice Obama and then apologized.
One should be quick to apologize when one does something wrong or hurtful but this is just silly. If she was stupid for saying something, it wasn’t for what she said above, it was for saying she was sorry for explaining her decision in the context of history (as she understands it).
SEE ALSO:
Newscoma
Sharon Cobb
Brendan Loy
LA Times
Marc Ambinder
Times Online
Wall Street Journal
Webutante
Pelosi Gets You White Working-Class Ethnic Catholics In Ohio?
Posted on May 22, 2008 at 1:02 pmThat’s what Tim Chavez seems to be saying and he doesn’t appear to be joking:
Obama is going to need a lot of help from a running mate in the general election. All the males being cited only help in one state and with one constituency. Pelosi appeals to Catholics, of which she is one, and that will make a difference in Pennsylvania and Ohio. And, of course, she is a woman. And they do most of the voting in every state in this country.
Pelosi can be more powerful as VP, particularly with foreign policy as her trips to Syria, Iraq and Tibet already have shown. She can also most effectively steer Obama’s legislative agenda through the Congress as Senate president with a vote on ties and with her long-time contacts in the House. I’m sure she is owed a lot of favors.
Hillary Wins In Cantuckee
Posted on May 20, 2008 at 6:20 pmAll the networks say so. Sean Braisted has some exit polling and Brendan Loy wonders how Barack Obama will go about declaring himself the winner of the Democratic Primary contest at large before the polls have even closed in the second primary of the night, Oregon.
SEE ALSO:
The GoldnI “Kentucky/Oregon/American Idol Finale” Live-Blog
Vibinc’s Cluster**** to the Nomination
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Coop Floats Nunn For Veep
Posted on at 6:54 amNot surprisingly considering the history, Rep. Jim Cooper is no fan of the idea of a “dream ticket” between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton:
“I think you’d have to go for a fresh face,” said Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), an Obama supporter, adding that it would make sense for Obama to choose from among the party’s “wide range of experienced foreign policy and national security experts. Sam Nunn, he’d be my first choice.”
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