Jack Kemp's 'opportunity and outreach'

Jack Kemp, the quarterback-turned-congressman who died Saturday of cancer, will best be remembered as a champion of supply-side economics who convinced Ronald Reagan to make tax cuts a centerpiece of his domestic agenda.

"Ronald Reagan was the president that popularized supply-side economics, but Jack Kemp more than anybody else sold supply-side economics to Ronald Reagan and made that part of his winning campaign in 1980," says Frank Donatelli, who served as political director in the Reagan White House.

"The big difference between Reagan in 1976, when he lost the Republican nomination, and the Ronald Reagan of 1980 that not only won the nomination but won the presidency, was the addition of an economic message, and that economic message was the Jack Kemp gospel of supply-side economics," he adds.

The chairman of GOPAC spoke with Greg Corombos of Radio America/WND. The audio of the exchange is embedded here:

Kemp subscribed to the theory that government could spur growth – and actually increase revenues – by lowering marginal tax rates, especially for those who produce goods and services.

"Kemp came at it from a theoretical perspective, Reagan came at it from a practical perspective, and the melding of the two worked out very well for the party and the country," says Donatelli.

An advocate of racial reconciliation, Kemp called himself a "bleeding-heart conservative" whose commitment to opportunity and diversity went back to his college football days.

"His association with black football players enabled him to see that there was a whole group of people out there that the Republican party had to do a better job of appealing to," Donatelli adds.

How would Donatelli summarize Kemp's appeal?

"It's opportunity and outreach.

"I think that really defined Kemp's view of conservatism throughout his political career."

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