Before there was John McCain, there was Jack Kemp, every Democrat's favorite conservative and a thorn in the side of the GOP. At the height of Reagan mania in the '80s, Kemp was pushing his party on civil rights and immigration at the same time he was one of President Reagan's principle foot soldiers on the push for tax cuts that would become the pillar of Republican politics. Kemp referred to himself as a "bleeding-heart conservative," and if his party had listened to him, Republicans might not be facing the major rebranding task they do today.

Kemp died Saturday at his home in Bethesda, Md., after a long battle with cancer. He was 73 years old. His passing coincided with a GOP gathering across the Potomac in Virginia billed as a town meeting to begin the task of rebuilding the party and connecting with voters. For a party in search of ideas, Kemp would have been a great resource. But even before he fell ill, he had fallen out of favor. The tale of how he and the principles he stood for were spurned stands as one of the tragedies of modern politics.

He came to politics from the world of sports where he saw firsthand the indignities heaped on players of color. In 1965, he joined with black players to support a boycott of an all-star game in New Orleans after nightclubs and cabs in the city refused them service. When affirmative action became a wedge issue in national politics, Kemp stood almost alone in the GOP in opposing initiatives to end it. A starring quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, he translated his leadership skills to the playing field of politics, winning a House seat in 1970 in upstate New York and arriving in Washington with the same enthusiasm for policy he had for throwing spirals.

Kemp often said he had more interest in ideas than in partisanship, a formula that made him popular with Democrats but created friction inside his own party. When Republicans made a centerpiece of opposing immigration policies, Kemp dissented. He would have been a natural ally for President Bush, who took on his party to push for immigration reform, but by then Kemp was off the Republican radar, disparaged as a RINO—Republican in Name Only. He took being sidelined in stride, an attitude he credited to his career in pro football. Asked in 1970 what qualified him to be a member of Congress, he said, "Pro football gave me a good sense of perspective to enter politics: I'd already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded and hung in effigy."  

He might have made a compelling presidential candidate for his party, but he was never able to navigate the primary process, where his unorthodox views labeled him an unreliable Republican as opposed to a Republican who could reach out beyond the party's narrowing base. He saw himself as the heir to Reagan, having championed tax-cutting in Congress before Reagan won the presidency. He ran for president in 1988 as the conservative alternative to Vice President George H.W. Bush, whom conservatives thought squishy on social issues, but Kemp wasn't able to gain traction. He hoped Bush would make him his running mate, but Bush, needing to court social conservatives, named Dan Quayle to the ticket while making Kemp his secretary of housing and urban affairs.

With his signature ebullience, Kemp tried to marry his economic ideas with a determination to connect with constituencies typically wary of Republican programs. He pushed hard for tax incentives for inner-city "enterprise zones," and proposed that people living in housing projects be allowed to purchase their homes. There wasn't much appetite in the first Bush administration for Kemp's ideas, and most of them stalled. But he did succeed in changing the tone of GOP politics at least in his corner of Washington, meeting with black leaders and joining with them in overseeing the demolition of housing projects—like Cabrini-Green in Chicago—that were ridden with crime and had become a testament to failed liberal policies.

Kemp's last chance at the White House came in 1996, when GOP standard bearer Bob Dole, in an effort to inject youth and energy into his campaign, made Kemp his running mate. But vice presidential candidates are supposed to be attack dogs, and the congenial Kemp didn't have it in him to go after Bill Clinton and Al Gore. He lost the vice presidential debate, and he and Dole couldn't seem to get their answers straight on tax policy. Dole had always been skeptical of the supply-side economics that Kemp favored, and Kemp, a congenital optimist, didn't give deficits the attention Dole thought they deserved.

Nobody could outdo Kemp as a tax-cutter. It was religion to him. But he was equally fervent about looking out for those his policies might have left behind. He didn't see any contradiction between upholding the economic principles he held dear and widening the tent to bring in others who might not be as orthodox. He was ahead of his time for his party, a lesson they had to learn the hard way.

© 2009