Jack Kemp, Star Quarterback and Champion of Tax Cuts, Dies

Jack Kemp died this morning, Sunday, May 3, 2009, of cancer at his home in Bethesda, Maryland. He went to the doctor in January complaining of hip pain. The cancer was discovered, but was already in an advanced stage and had matastasized to several organs.

Jack French Kemp was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He had two older and one younger brother. His father owned a small trucking company and his mother was a social worker. Kemp went to Occidental College in L.A., where he was a football star. He graduated with a degree in Physical Education in 1957.

Jack Kemp was a 17th round NFL draft pick to the Detroit Lions in 1957. He was cut before the season even started. He was picked up and released in 1958 by the Pittsburgh Steelers, for whom he played four games. He spent a year in the Army, then was picked up by the Canadian Football League's Calgary Stampeders. In 1960 he join the AFL's Los Angeles Chargers as a free agent. The following year he moved with them to San Diego.

In 1962 he was at the wrong of end of some paperwork. A waivers foul-up got the Buffalo Bills their new Quarterback for the bargain price of $100. Kemp played in every game for Buffalo from 1963 to 1969.

Kemp led Buffalo to the 1964 and the 1965 AFL Championships. He won the AFL Most Valuable Player award in 1965. AP reporters Matt Apuzzo and Carolyn Thompson write that he co-founded the AFL Players Association and served as president for the union for five terms. He retired from football in 1969 when the AFL merged into the NFL.

In 1967 Kemp served as a special assistant for then California governor Ronald Reagan. After his 1969 retirement from football Kemp worked as an assistant for the Republican National Committee, and then ran for Congress in the suburban Buffalo district where he was a hero from his football days. Though it was traditionally Democratic area, Jack Kemp had a real appeal to the blue-collar people who lived and worked there.

As a Congressman he worked diligently to cut taxes on the rich, believing that the way to encourage growth in the United States was to encourage (not tax) people who were highly productive. He believed these highly productive people, while rich themselves, created the jobs and opportunities that would make the United States thrive.

Jack Kemp ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, but came in fourth. He called for free trade, a return to the gold standard, and for Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. He finished fourth. Father H.W. Bush went on to win the presidency.

Ed Rollins, one of Kemp's campaign advisers, wrote a memoir in which he said "Jack was a totally unmanageable candidate." Rollins believed that his Quarterback mentality led Kemp to believe in his own ability to make the big play and said Kemp resented "being controlled by anyone."

Kemp served as HUD Secretary under Bush from 1989 to 1993. He supported the idea of enterprise zones, which would use tax breaks to lure business to inner cities. He was unable to get the enterprise zones into law, however. He also was unable to win approval for his idea to sell public housing units to the people who live in them.

He decided not to run for president in 1996, but worked hard to make sure tax cuts remained high on the Republican party's stated agenda. He endorsed Steve Forbes and his flat tax proposal.
Steve Forbes lost the nomination to Robert Dole, but Dole still took Kemp as his running mate in the race against Bill Clinton.

Kemp owned a consulting firm in Washington, D.C. called Kemp Partners. The stated areas of expertise are consulting, defense/homeland security, financial/capital markets, manufacturing, real estate/housing, sports/entertainment, technology, and transportation. He married his college sweetheart in 1958. They have two boys, both of whom played professional football, and two daughters.

AP Report on the Death of Jack Kemp by Matt Apuzzo and Carolyn Thompson- http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iPIEjfIjOPpnL8SxbDfdLORikcFwD97UONE82
Rollins, Ed: Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms: My Life in American Politics. Broadway Publishing, 1996.
http://www.kemppartners.com/