Earlier this month, Jack Kemp passed away.
Kemp was known for many things. He was an NFL quarterback in the 1960s, a member of US Congress, the US Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, and the man who ran for Vice President with Bob Dole in 1996 (and loosing to Bill Clinton & Al Gore).
He was a believer in free-market economics, who helped wrote tax-cut laws that was signed by President Reagan, promoted enterprise zones in many inner city areas in hopes of bringing businesses back to many dying cities in the late 1980s/early 1990's.
He wanted the Republican Party to expend it's membership from being an overwhelmingly Eruopean-American party into one with more African-Americans and Latinos. Kemp understand that not every African-American or Latino is a far-left liberal; that some are church-going traditionalists, entrepreneurs, veterans who could relate to certain aspects of the conservative ideology! Kemp also understood that the growing Latino population makes it important that the Republican Party to NOT be a "whites only party".
While Reagan and Bush Jr. did have more Latino votes than most Republican politicians, too many other Republican supporters alienated Latinos with their anti-immigration proposals. Meanwhile, while some Republican politicians attempted to reach out to African-American voters, many African-Americans were alienated from the party due to politicians like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott who openly pandered to white segregationists.
Meanwhile, a combo of factors, including the housing crisis, Wall Street meltdown of 2008, and the charismatic leadership of Barack Obama has made the Democratic Party more powerful and the Republican Party in decline!
Now, the Republican Party is going through an identity crisis. Should it be a more centrist party or should it stick to its conservative principles?
If the Republican Party wants to survive in the 21st century, it doesn't have to abandon all conservative principles.
It does, however, need better marketing to non-white voters. Having Micheal Steele, its first African-American chairman, does help!
It does need to be more pro-immigration. The idea that "Republicans need to be more anti-immigration to win elections in the future is WISHFUL THINKING!". The California Republicans tried that in the 1990's. They won in 1994, but it only motivated non-voting Latinos to become voters, moderate Latinos to be alienated from the Republican Party, and motivated immigrants to take their citizenship tests so they could become eligible to vote. The Democrats benefitted from the Republicans shooting themselves in the foot! Afterwards, the Republicans have been in severe decline in California, with it's only bright moment being the election of Austrian immigrant Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor!
Meanwhile, in the 1990's, in Texas, another state with a large Latino population, and a Anglo population even more conservative than California's, George W. Bush understood that alienating Latino immigrant would hurt the Republican Party in the long run! He openly criticized the anti-immigration activists. Bush still sticked with conservative principles on moral, tax, energy, and defense issues! Because of this, Bush won TWICE as governor of Texas and won TWICE as the US president!
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Here's what Clarence Page wrote on Jack Kemp.
http://jewishworldreview.com/0509/page050709.php3
Who in the world would bring the queen to a pubic housing project? I knew it had to be Jack Kemp, the former pro football star and Republican congressman from New York who had become secretary of Housing and Urban Development under the first President Bush.
Would anyone else in stodgy Washington have had the desire, the enthusiasm and the steamroller perseverance to bring the queen and a rare spotlight of public attention to America's vastly overlooked underclass? I think not.
To those who cared about the future of our cities, the stunt was "pure Jack." He would have done just about anything to bring attention to his urban "empowerment" agenda, which included tenant management and ownership of public housing, "liberated" from negligent, fraudulent or incompetent bureaucrats and government contractors.
[skipped paragraphs]
He scoured the country for "neighborhood assets," the ordinary men and women in every neighborhood who, given a chance, make better local leaders and organizers than government intermediaries do.
Kemp didn't just talk about blacks, Hispanics or the poor. He knew real people. He lunched in soup kitchens and spent nights in low-income apartments. Inside every "ghetto," he saw a neighborhood itching to be "empowered" and "liberated," perhaps with a little "seed corn" from government or private foundations.
Meanwhile, is President Obama willing to openly and consistently promote enterprise zones, and tenant ownership of public housing? Both were championed by Jack Kemp! Both could help inner-city ghettoes like the ones Obama used to work in at Chicago. Both could end the streotype of Obama as a "socialist"!
