On a brick-paved Main Street in front of the Russell County Courthouse in his rural hometown, Bob Dole on Saturday formally introduced Jack Kemp as his Republican running mate, offering the nation the promise of economic renewal and a revived presidential campaign.
Standing in the same place where Dole had been unveiled 20 years ago as President Gerald Ford’s pick for vice president, the Republican candidate made official his choice of the former New York congressman as his partner in the GOP’s bid to retake the White House this November.
“I’m here today . . . to introduce you my choice for vice president, a man of unlimited talent, energy and vision, an American original, Jack Kemp,” Dole said. “. . . And my mission for running for president is to give our nation a new birth of freedom.”
More than anything, Kemp delivers Dole an opportunity to recast the image of the Republican Party in a more optimistic, tolerant light aimed at winning the presidential race in the nation’s vast political middle.
A self-described “bleeding-heart conservative,” Kemp also gives strong, energetic voice to the centerpiece of Dole’s proposed economic plan, a 15 percent across-the-board tax cut to stimulate economic growth. Kemp was an apostle of supply-side economics long before Dole, who used to deride the policy with caustic jokes.
Now that Dole has staked his trailing campaign against President Clinton on the promise of tax cuts, the former congressman, housing secretary and professional quarterback probably was the most muscular advocate he could have chosen.
With Kemp, 61, Dole sought a running mate of vigor and rhetorical flourish. Kemp clearly excited many of the activists preparing for the convention set to begin Monday in San Diego, but even some of them cautioned that Kemp’s penchant for speaking his mind is a potential campaign land mine.
Appearing fresh after a day of frenzied speculation about his selection as he flew from Washington to Florida to Texas to Kansas, Kemp displayed his idealism and soaring speaking style in Russell.
“It is no secret that I believe this is the most exciting time in the most eventful century in human history,” Kemp said. “. . . American ideals and American ideas grip the imagination of men and women in every corner of the globe.
“. . . It is within our grasp to renew America’s promise, its possibilities and, most of all, its potential. Bob Dole has formally accepted that challenge. . . . The entire world is looking to America for inspiration and leadership. More than ever, we are the bright signal in an otherwise dark night.”
Kemp, a moderate on affirmative action, immigration and race relations who has argued passionately for the GOP to extend its appeal to impoverished inner cities, vowed to reach out to voters who traditionally are Democrats “from the boroughs of New York to the barrios of California.”
Though it is unlikely the GOP ticket will pull in substantial numbers of minority votes, Kemp’s message has resonance with suburban independent voters who have criticized the Republican Party’s positions on race matters.
“We want to and intend to represent the entire American family,” said Kemp, who concluded his remarks quoting Rev. Martin Luther King, “I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know who holds the future.”
Dole strategists long have thought he faced a major problem of perception among voters that the Republican Party was lacking in compassion. The selection of Kemp was designed, in part, to change that view.
Dole nearly succeeded in his effort to keep his vice presidential choice a surprise. He placed a call Friday from his home in Russell to Kemp, who was in a holding room to an airport in Dallas. Kemp accepted the offer, then flew to Great Bend, Kan., south of Russell and was spirited to Dole’s home using a back alley.
In San Diego, Republican moderates and conservatives alike hailed the selection of Kemp as a shot in the arm to a flagging campaign.
“I think it’s excellent. I think it’s going to give a degree of dynamism to the campaign that we needed,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a finalist for the No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket. “And the economic message is really one that is going to resonate with the American people. The anxiety, the failure to achieve the American dream, is going to be the major issue in the campaign, and nobody better describes it and articulates it than Jack Kemp.”
Malcolm “Steve” Forbes Jr., a flat tax, supply-side disciple who challenged Dole for the Republican nomination, was lavish in his praise of his former rival and waxed effusively about the party’s newly honed economic message.
“I think that shows that Bob Dole is a true leader, and who has confidence in his own abilities to bring people on, people of diverse backgrounds, people he may not have necessarily gotten along with in the past,” Forbes said.
In selecting Kemp, Dole went against his own criteria for a running mate with whom he had a long, personal relationship. He and Kemp never have been close and, at times, have been highly critical of each other.
Kemp, an unpaid co-director of the conservative think tank Empower America, had given the Dole campaign strong indications during the Republican primaries that he would endorse Dole (the campaign had chartered a jet to take Kemp to New Hampshire) only to have Kemp spurn them and back Forbes.
Dole and Kemp no doubt will have to resolve their many differences on issues such as affirmative action and immigration policy.
Kemp broke with most Republicans when he vocally opposed Proposition 187, a 1994 California ballot initiative to deny services to illegal immigrants; Dole supported the proposal.
This year, Dole backs a California initiative to repeal state affirmative action programs; Kemp has criticized it on grounds that it sends the wrong message to minorities.
Politics often breeds strange relationships of convenience, and Kemp brings Dole a measure of dynamism in the race to make up the wide margin by which President Clinton now leads Dole in every national survey. From this point, Kemp will be expected to run on Dole’s agenda, not his own.
As housing secretary in the Bush Cabinet, Kemp often was at odds with administration officials. For instance, he publicly criticized George Bush for sponsoring a tax increase in 1990 that broke a pledge the president had made. Kemp’s constant push for funding urban empowerment zones also created friction.
“I sure hope Bob and he have had a heart-to-heart talk, that Bob sat him down and said, `Jack, you’ve been given to saying things at odds with my position and you’ve just got to submerge yourself to my position on these issues,’ ” said former House GOP leader Bob Michel of Illinois.
Kemp also has a long public record of speeches, interviews, votes and policy positions that will undergo intense scrutiny in the coming weeks. Already, Kemp’s political opponents have distributed a list of instances in which they try to portray him as out of the mainstream.
One policy certain to be criticized is Kemp’s view that the nation should return to a gold standard to determine the value of the dollar.
And Kemp has been a target of Dole’s barbed wit. During the 1988 presidential campaign, Dole told him: “You’ve been playing quarterback too long.” He added: “There was a certain football player who forgot his helmet and then started talking supply-side theory.”
In choosing Kemp, Dole passed over Sens. McCain and Connie Mack of Florida, former South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell and Michigan Gov. John Engler, among others. Though each offered potential strength–Mack and Engler possibly delivering key states, and Engler and McCain possibly delivering a region–Dole went for a candidate he hopes has national appeal.
Despite all the excited talk in San Diego about a vice presidential candidate who could help fuel an enthusiastic convention for Dole, one possible negative story emerged.
Gov. William Weld of Massachusetts, who had praised the choice of Kemp as a Dole running mate, withdrew from a prime-time speaking slot at the convention after the event’s managers demanded that he abandon the planned centerpiece of his speech–abortion.
Weld favors abortion rights and was critical of the GOP’s anti-abortion platform. Frustrated at being silenced on that issue, he decided to not speak at all. The flap served as a reminder that Kemp alone cannot erase all the divisions within the GOP.
Vice presidential candidates, especially those who come as a surprise, often generate a burst of enthusiasm, but they rarely determine the outcome of elections. Jack Kemp helps Bob Dole in the short run, but it is Dole, not the quarterback, who must cross the goal line.
