A Liberated Jack Kemp Now Free to Shape Public Policy

Jack Kemp pulls no punches when it comes to the war in Kosovo. In his view, “world peace cannot rest on American threats of violence, bombs at midnight or the bully tactics of President Clinton.”

That scathing judgment was contained in a memo recently circulated among GOP leaders. And it is through such missives that Kemp hopes to shape public policy, even though by opting not to run for president in 2000 he may have ended his career’s office-seeking phase.

Some believe his decision liberated Kemp, the former professional football quarterback who, as the GOP’s 1996 vice presidential candidate, had a natural springboard from which to launch a White House bid.

“He can now say things that active politicians can’t,” says Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. “At long last he can throw the long ball.”

Kemp’s self-imposed benching is seen by some as an implicit reproof of the political system in general and his own party in particular. “Jack is somebody who believes in ideas,” says Kemp’s longtime campaign aide, Sal Russo. “And political campaigns have become a battle of fund-raisers rather than a clash of ideas.”

Without voicing any bitterness, Kemp, 64, acknowledges increasing frustration at the resistance within the GOP not only to his stress on tax cutting but also his efforts to make the party more inclusive.

“I love the Republican Party,” he said in an interview. “But I don’t feel like I’m a very good Republican. I disagree with so much of what the party is not doing.”

He added: “I’m not in the mainstream of the Republican Party right now. It’s too grumpy, too willing to sit on the status quo.”

Kemp cites the failure of GOP congressional leaders last year to back a proposal by Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton, delegate for the District of Columbia, to trim taxes in the nation’s capital. The Republicans opposed the plan because it would erode the federal budget surplus. To Kemp, the party missed a chance to improve its profile among urban dwellers.

“If that law had passed, every city in the country would have wanted [a tax cut] like it,” Kemp claimed. “But [GOP leaders] were too busy counting angels dancing on the head of a budget pin.”

On foreign policy, Kemp complains that, though the communist threat has receded, too many Republicans “are looking for new enemies to replace old enemies.”

Self-Conscious About Background

Even Kemp’s admirers concede that, despite considerable verve and imagination, he was hampered by shortcomings. Many believe that despite his achievements in politics--which include nine House terms and service in the Bush administration--he remained self-conscious about his background as an athlete.

“He was more engaged in intellectual life than any candidate I’ve ever known,” said GOP consultant Jeff Bell, who helped run Kemp’s ill-fated 1988 presidential campaign. Certain ideas enraptured Kemp, regardless of voter reaction. Iowa politicians still shake their heads about his insistence in the ’88 campaign on trying to convince the state’s farmers that their economic troubles could be traced to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to abandon the gold standard.

But not all his crusades proved fruitless. As much as anyone, he helped convince President Reagan of the virtues of supply-side economics. With its emphasis on slashing taxes, that philosophy helped lay the foundation for years of GOP political dominance.

As the 2000 campaign evolves, Kemp plans to keep in touch with a number of the contenders and ultimately endorse one. He floated the prospect that, if the GOP nominated “someone I didn’t agree with,” he might try to join “in a ‘Third Way’ party.”

But Kemp added quickly: “That’s an idle threat. I’m not an angry man. I don’t think I’m the Ross Perot or Jesse Ventura type.”