Jack Kemp's Warning

The Jamestown Sun ^ | 5/9/09 | Steve and Cokie Roberts

[keat]

hog-wash.

[SoConPubbie]

Big-Tent is just code-phrase for dropping your principles.

Everyone is welcome in the GOP tent, as long as they are willing to live by the principles of self-reliance, self-responsibility, limited government, strong military, free-enterprise, and a strong moral code.

That’s a pretty big tent.

If you have problems with any of those issues, there is another party for you, it’s referred to the party of ME and is commonly called the Democrat party.

[nmh]

The “big tent” was the MISTAKE of the GOP.

You can NOT be all things to ALL people.

It doesn’t work.

Kemp was a tad to the LEFT.

What the GOP does NEED to do is PUSH CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGY so people UNDERSTAND WHY it is SUPERIOR. Constantly watering DOWN the GOP to Demoncrat ideals is what has been DESTROYING the GOP. If you don’t agree with that, then become a Demoncrat. The GOP can NOT survive being Demoncrat light and tossing aside it’s CORE PRINCIPLES.

[wolfpat]

Okay, let me see if I have this right. We’re supposed to reach out to people who want us to do things that we know;

1. are wrong.

2. wouldn’t work, even if they weren’t wrong.

[skeeter]

"I've taken showers," Jack Kemp loved to say, "with the kind of people most Republicans have never met."

Its this kind of condescending (and ridiculous) stereotyping of his OWN supporters that soured me on Jack Kemp.

We get enough of this BS from our political opponents.

[nmh]

“Big-Tent is just code-phrase for dropping your principles.”

Exactly!

Those STATS quoted are NOT CORRECT either.

This is “hog wash” and I won’t be moved because Jack Kemp passed away into watering down core principles.

[nmh]

This “taking of showers” isn’t something I’d tout as a good thing ... it’s lead to the destruction of the GOP. At some point their must be boundaries that you do not cross based on principle. Jack has forgotten about that.

People need to THINK and not let their EMOTIONS be their guide as Kemp is suggesting.

[x]

"I've taken showers," Jack Kemp loved to say, "with the kind of people most Republicans have never met."

I see the point, but that plays into some myths about Republicans (and about Jack Kemp) that probably shouldn't have been encouraged.

He wanted the "big tent" of the Republican Party to cover the entire football field where he once starred as a quarterback for the Buffalo Bills. The black linemen who blocked for him and the blue-collar workers who cheered for him should all have a place in the GOP.

Again, I can see the point about race, but most of those very stuffy old Republicans who looked down on the working classes, are now either dead or Democrats. A few may be living in gated communities, but (so far as I can see) Republicans look more like those blue-collar workers than like the old country club Brahmins.

[SoConPubbie]

You are correct, furthermore, why anyone in the GOP would listen to someone like Cokie Roberts who:

1. Does not have the GOP best interests at heart
2. Is a flaming liberal
3. Whose goal is to move the GOP to the left and thereby guarantee it’s failure.

[ilgipper]

Amazingly, the party is far more to the left now than in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s when we had majorities and/or the White House. The person who steps up on the national platform and refutes this concept the left is pushing that the party has moved right gets my vote.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Cokie Roberts,a Senator's daughter and about as clueless as Megan McCain. You can't make inroads into the black vote against a black President. The blacks still with the GOP believe as the GOP on the issues and those are more important.(Rare Birds!!)

The best strategy for the GOP is to be there when Obama and his Socialist policies self destruct. If they don't the GOP is dead anyway and there is no point in trying to turn into Democrats lite.

[donna]

"I've taken showers," Jack Kemp loved to say, "with the kind of people most Republicans have never met."

Did he ever shower with the illegal aliens that are moving into my neighborhood - my neighbors? I don't think so.

[Free State Four]

But as Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, has noted, Kemp's old party is today more like an umbrella than a tent,

Well, I can see how Snowe should be the go-to gal for diversity. The black vote in Maine is a critical factor in elections.

[Frank_2001]

And he never took a shower with OJ, either! (the kind of person most Republicans would never WANT to meet!)

[Cicero]

I wouldn’t trust Cokie Roberts to get this right.

Hell, I think the Republicans should reach out to blacks, too—by treating them as human beings, not as votes to be bought. They will never be able to outbuy the Democrats. They should appeal to blacks on a basis of religion, family, and decent values. They should work with blacks to get their families together again. They should ask blacks if they really want to be known for gangsta rap and broken families.

A majority of black voters voted against gay marriage in California. That should be a wedge issue, too.

[WorkingClassFilth]

The issue at the core of the big-tent vs. principles debate is that the center of American social values has shifted left. In Kemp’s time, America was still fairly cohesive, shared common values (i.e., Judeo-Christian ideas) and a big tent policy embracing sound principles would have been easily adapted to a wide range of social strata. Today, that ain’t the case. The nation is fractured in more ways than a china teacup under a sledge hammer. To garner a wide spectrum today would be to dilute common values to the point of meaninglessness.

[WorkingClassFilth]

"I've taken showers," Jack Kemp loved to say, "with the kind of people most Republicans have never met."

Barney Frank still does.

[Frank_2001]

Actually, OJ’s career and Kemp’s overlapped by a couple of seasons, so he might very well have taken a shower with OJ!

[BlueYonder]

Taking a shower is one thing.

Taking an electoral bath is another.