Posted on 05/05/2009 11:22:11 AM PDT by pissant
The veteran strategist traveling with Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp was sneaking a smoke outside the Boeing Field hangar where his candidate held forth in final days of the 1996 campaign.
"Whichever way this election goes, I can say that I've been with a winner: The guy is smart as a whip, never discouraged, full of ideas," said Washington, D.C., lawyer John Sears.
Sears' words stopped there -- wisely. The parties' rival nominees for president, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, were famous for beating up on staff. Sears was fired as Ronald Reagan's manager a day after the Gipper's smashing 1980 New Hampshire primary victory.
Jack Kemp, who died at 73 last weekend, was a happy -- and often yappy -- warrior. He spoke candidly, didn't shy away from controversy, and dreamed big dreams.
(snip) The well-dressed crowd was almost entirely white. Yet, there was Kemp, talking about how Republicans should become a big-tent party that welcomed working-class whites, black Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asia-Pacific Islanders into the fold.
(Excerpt) Read more at 2.seattlepi.com ...
However, I learned something else about Kemp during his VP debate with Al Gore. I'll never forget that.
What makes “people flock” to Third parties? Mental illness, bed-wetting and a need for failure.
He had conviction and principles. The problem was that he was a nice guy who didn’t want to destroy his opponents.
Kemp was not a “fool”...
Nope. They flock to 3rd parties due to disgust with the GOP pansy ass liberals.
Kemp was very good on economic principles but very befuddled when it came to group pandering.
Republicans have been conducing “outreach” to blacks, Hispanics, and other PC preferred groups for decades. Blacks still vote Dim by anywhere from 91% up, Hispanics regularly vote Dim by 60% and more, etc.
Republicans have won by winning a convincing percentage of the white vote, the very block that it consistently pokes in the eye. At the same time, there is the “outreach” pandering to groups who will never vote Republican and the GOP elite telling us we are xenophobes if we don’t allow ourselves to be overrun by masses of people who will vote—DIM!
These people are severly deluded (or worse).
And implying that Jack Kemp was a “pansy ass liberal” makes that Third Party “flock” a fleck.
I didn’t imply that. You inferred it.
Just saw your tag...the Falcon Party? Hahahahahahahahahaha!!! And you call Kemp a fool? Falcon Party, OMG I’ll never stop laughing!!
You can remove the democrat from the party but its damn hard to remove the democrat from the democrat.. all you end up with almost always is a RINO.. i.e. BIG government republican/ Stealth Socialist..
Kemp was a very confused individual.. used by democrats like a rented Donkey.. He never knew to be a democrat is to be a traitor.. or worse a tool used by the traitors.. He wasn't too smart..
I think that the problem inferred by reference to “big tent” is that many presume it to mean “anything goes”. That isn’t true of the dhimmicrat party and shouldn’t be with Republicans either.
IMO a winning message from the Republicans would be “All are welcome - these are our principles and core beliefs”. I’m not interested in pandering to anybody.
I'd argue that (for example), advocating private ownership of public housing wasn't "pandering."
So true. We might take Kemp a bit more seriously if he’d actually won anything beyond his appt. as HUD Sec’y (in which position his BigTent notions remained harmless enough).
The problem with the “big tent” approach is where the pole usually get stuck...
LoL...
Exactly...I liked Kemp and thought he was a decent person and a nice guy. I do not think it was in his makeup to destroy and lash out as seems to be so necessary today. I found him to be a thoughtful and well-spoken person.
All that talk is getting the Log Cabin Republicans excited.
Now I know why the Kemp eulogy I posted skyrocketed to eight comments. He wasn’t a True Conservative™ (and by that standard no one, including Reagan, was).
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