WHILE taking a daily walk around Terrace Gardens, a development just over the Nassau line near my own Westmoreland Gardens, I found the remains of a Dole-Kemp campaign sticker. Longtime Kansas senator Bob Dole (who died in December 2021) and running mate Jack Kemp lost to the incumbent Clinton-Gore Democratic ticket in 1996.
Though Jack Kemp represented his Buffalo, New York region in the House of Representatives from 1971 to 1989, after he quarterbacked the Buffalo Bills to the AFL championship in 1964 and 1965, he didn’t have quite the same success in national politics that a previous similarly-thatched, quick-witted Jack had had in 1960. Still, Jack Kemp (1935-2009) was a formidable presence on the political scene for years. Originally elected as a right-wing conservative, by the time he sought the Republican presidential candidacy in 1988, his views had evolved to the point where he was thought of as a Republican that labor unions and college campuses could, if not love, at least abide. Kemp was beaten by George H.W. Bush for the nomination in 1988…but it would not be his last bow on the national electoral stage.
Jack Kemp was co-director of Empower America, a public policy and advocacy organization he founded in 1993 with Dr. William Bennett and former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. The organization is now helmed by Senator Tim Scott.
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8/3/22