In 1978 I ran my third campaign as a "supply side, tax cut, economic growth" Republican. That was the year the Republican National Committee chairman Bill Brock chartered a plane dubbed the tax-cut special and flew Kemp and Senator Bill Roth around the country touting their bold new agenda--a 10 percent tax cut per year for three years. It became a centerpiece of our 1978 effort. Our campaign put out a newspaper dedicated to how lower taxes would improve the lives of working Georgians. We used a grocery shopping cart as our symbol. We had combined Jack's supply-side ideas with the modern equivalent of William McKinley's full lunch bucket to appeal to working Americans and their economic interests. We won.
I came to Washington as a Kemp disciple, but I got madder at the old Republican establishment than he did. I resented their slights and maneuvers, while he cheerfully tromped past them and kept talking up new ideas, outreach, and policies.
Halfway through my freshman term, in 1979, Kemp said he was going to California. He was wavering between running for president himself as a tax-cutting candidate and helping lead Ronald Reagan's campaign. Kemp had been an intern in Governor Reagan's office a decade before. He liked Reagan but was determined that there would be a candidate dedicated to the Kemp-Roth tax cuts.
The following Monday I got a very excited phone call from a very happy Jack Kemp. Governor Reagan had agreed to make tax cuts a centerpiece of his campaign, and Kemp
had agreed to be one of his national chairmen.
I have always wondered what would have happened if Reagan had picked Kemp to be his vice presidential nominee in 1980. Kemp was from upstate New York and would have brought regional balance. He represented an appeal to blue-collar conservative Democrats rather than an effort to reach out to moderate, more affluent voters.
Kemp was a true believer in tax cuts, in a strong national defense, and in a Republican party that actively sought to improve the lives of every American. He liked to point out that as a football player, he had been in locker rooms with more minority Americans than many Republicans had met in their lifetimes. Kemp had a natural desire to be a good shepherd and seek a wider flock. He would have been a great vice president in 1980 and a growth and inclusion-oriented president in 1988.
As it is, Kemp changed history more than many presidents. Working with Reagan, he ushered in a tax-cut revolution and an understanding of entrepreneurial economics that changed policies in dozens of countries.
After Barack Obama's high tax, big-government, politician-centered model of trickle-down bureaucracy fails, and its $9 trillion debt brings on inflation and economic disarray, it will be time to dust off Jack Kemp's speeches and educate Americans once more in the virtues of growth and opportunity that he devoted his life to.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich is the author, along with Jackie Gingrich Cushman, of the forthcoming book, 5 Principles for a Successful Life: From Our Family to Yours.
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