Today’s Republican Party could reclaim electoral success by following the model of football star turned Congressman Jack Kemp, said one veteran D.C. journalist Tuesday.
Morton Kondracke discussed Kemp’s political legacy during a lecture in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, where he has been researching and writing about Kemp with the aid of records from his time in Congress. The nine-term congressman, often remembered for his advocacy of tax cuts during President Ronald Reagan’s administration, also supported efforts by his party to reach out to black voters and other minorities.
"Jack Kemp represents a brand of Republican that his party today desperately needs to emulate," Kondracke said.
Kemp rose to fame as a quarterback in the 1960s for the Buffalo Bills, leading them to two championships in the American Football League. He developed close relationships with his teammates, who called him "the senator" for reading books by Friedrich August Hayek and Milton Friedman and lecturing them on economics, Kondracke said.
When black members of the league boycotted a 1965 All-Star Game in New Orleans because of discrimination by city vendors, Kemp supported them and helped move the game to Houston.
"Jack Kemp has showered with more black Americans than most Republicans have ever met," Kondracke said, recalling a quote from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Kemp’s popularity as a football star in New York led him to run for Congress in 1970, the start of a lengthy career in the House. He began his career as a traditional Republican favoring reduced spending and a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, Kondracke said. That changed when he met Wall Street Journal editorial writer Jude Wanniski.
Wanniski extolled the theory of "supply-side" economics to Kemp, explaining how tax cuts and a tighter monetary policy could boost economic growth and revenues and curb the inflation of the 1970s. Kemp immediately advocated for broad-based tax cuts but was ignored by senior Republicans dismissive of his status as a backbencher.
"He was a jock. What did he know about tax policy?" Kondracke said his fellow Republicans joked.
However, tax cuts became mainstream Republican economic policy after Reagan made them the centerpiece of his presidential campaign in 1980. Kemp manifested the new philosophy by authoring and ushering two proposals through Congress—the 1981 tax cuts and the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which eliminated some tax deductions and lowered the top marginal rate from 50 to 28 percent.
"This guy was a physical education major, and he became the leading exponent of a revolution in economic thought in America," Kondracke said.
The policies helped stimulate an economy suffering from "stagflation" in the 1970s, Kondracke noted, leading to a surge in the rate of economic growth.
Kemp ran for president in 1988 touting the new period of economic prosperity, but he never gained a following due to his refusal to attack primary opponents like George H.W. Bush, Kondracke said.
"He thought ideas moved the world and ideas would win him the campaign," he said. "That is not the way politics worked then and surely not the way it works now."
Kemp served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in Bush’s administration and resumed his outreach efforts to minority communities. He pushed for the creation of "enterprise zones," regions with low taxes and loose regulations, to help revitalize urban neighborhoods and employ residents.
Kemp would urge Republicans to remain a party of ideas if he were still in politics today, Kondracke said.
"I doubt Kemp would be an austerity Republican or a Tea Party Republican," he said. "He would be for things. He would for a better healthcare system, tax system, education system. He would be for taking the stagnant middle class and creating jobs and opportunities for that group."