Jack Kemp
As such things usually play out, Jack Kemp is finally getting the credit he should have gotten during his life. It took a bout with cancer and his recent passing to make his political opponents re-realize what a decent human being Kemp was.
Here’s Jonathan Singer today on MyDD:
But as much as Kemp helped move his party to the right during his time in public life, he also brought something else to his party that has been sorely missing: Compassion. I’m not talking about the type of poll-tested “compassionate conservatism” that George W. Bush proclaimed during the 2000 campaign. No, Kemp actually believed that the country would be better off if more people had the opportunity to live the American dream.
As Singer mentioned, Kemp was a conservative because he believed that conservative principles were good for people. You never got the impression that Kemp wanted to just help those on top stay on top. That’s what 90% of non-Republicans believe our party stands for. We’re seen as selfish and unwilling to come up with ways to help those who need it.
Here’s Kemp himself in a column he wrote about Coretta Scott King after her passing in 2006:
Mrs. King went on to ask me to use my political influence to help address the pressing problems of impoverished urban and rural neighborhoods, the unacceptable levels of poverty and homelessness, and ultimately the lack of access to capital for all too many people of color with which to launch businesses and own their own homes.
The issue of poverty was a subject addressed by Dr. King in his “I Have a Dream” speech of August 1963, when he said, “the Negro lives on an isle of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” Dr. King talked of the battle against the grinding abject despair that gripped all too many people and families left out of the American dream. He said that while we’ve come a long way, we still have long to go.
Obviously, education, homeownership and job opportunities are critical to a meaningful bipartisan war on poverty…
Education. Home ownership. Job opportunities. Kemp believed that the American dream and that there was nothing wrong with pushing for a society that expanded that dream.
