WORLD> America
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WORLD> America
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Jack Kemp, former quarterback and VP nominee, dies
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-03 12:34 In 11 seasons, he sustained a dozen concussions, two broken ankles and a crushed hand - which Kemp insisted a doctor permanently set in a passing position so that he could continue to play. "Pro football gave me a good perspective," he was quoted as saying. "When I entered the political arena, I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded, and hung in effigy." Kemp was born in California to Christian Scientist parents. He worked on the loading docks of his father's trucking company as a boy before majoring in physical education at Occidental College, where he led the nation's small colleges in passing. He became a Presbyterian after marrying his college sweetheart, Joanne Main. The couple had four children, including two sons who played professional football. He joined with a son and son-in-law to form a Washington strategic consulting firm, Kemp Partners, after leaving office. Through his political life, Kemp's positions spanned the social spectrum: He opposed abortion and supported school prayer, yet appealed to liberals with his outreach toward minorities and compassion for the poor. He pushed for immigration reform to include a guest-worker program and status for the illegal immigrants already here. At the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs, he proposed more than 50 programs to combat urban blight and homelessness and was an early and strong advocate of enterprise zones. In 1993, along with former Education Secretary William Bennett and former US Ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick, he co-founded Empower America, a public policy organization intended to promote economic growth, job creation and entrepreneurship.His choice as Dole's 1996 running mate was seen as a way for the Republican Party to reach groups of voter that Dole could not. And it came even after Kemp endorsed Steve Forbes for the nomination - a move many considered political suicide - and declared himself a "recovering politician." Dole's more sober demeanor contrasted sharply by Kemp's high-spiritedness, which was recalled in various accounts, including one by Marlin Fitzwater, Bush's press secretary. Fitzwater wrote in his memoirs about a time when Kemp lunged at Secretary of State James Baker III in the Oval Office. The housing secretary was "nagging, nagging, nagging" Bush to recognize the breakaway Soviet satellite of Lithuania and Baker, the color rising in his face, screamed an epithet at Kemp, Fitzwater recalled. Kemp bounded across the furniture and grabbed at Baker's throat. They were pulled apart to avoid a fistfight.
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