I was cleaning my den this weekend when I came across an old photo. It was taken in 1994 after a sold-out speech by my hero, conservative luminary Jack Kemp. The photo is out of focus, stained with coffee from mid-terms, and Jack’s face is washed out because the photo was snapped in haste on the way to his waiting limousine, but it tells a great story!
Back in 1994 I was treasurer of the USC College Republicans and a rabid Jack Kemp fan. I was famous in the club for having once told a liberal political science professor at the end of a heated exchange that “…Jack Kemp IS God!” I carried a faded Empower America bumper sticker on my notebook and was rarely seen in public without a “KEMP|96” button on my shirt. I’d spent part of the summer before volunteering at the Empower America offices in Washington, D.C. and even considered blowing off my USC admissions letter to work for Empower America for a year. Fortunately in retrospect, that opportunity fell through.
When it was announced that the former HUD Secretary would speak on our campus in February of 1994, I was awe-struck! It was like hearing that all the hottest rock bands and movie stars in America were coming to campus and I would get front row seats to the event! On the day of the event, Secretary Kemp asked several probing questions of his escorts about our clubs efforts at minority outreach and was reportedly treated to a fifteen minute rant by our Chairman about his “biggest fan,” who happened to be black…Me!
During Kemp’s speech, I sat in the front row as excited as an evangelical preacher hit with the spirit! When Jack chided the audience by saying that he wanted “the dollar to be as good as…(pregnant pause waiting for the audience to respond)”, I dutifully jumped to my feet (fists in the air) and cried out “GOLD!!!” When he’d concluded his speech and the applause began, I enthusiastically hopped up on my chair and began chanting “Kemp ’96, KEMP IN NINETY-SIX!!!” I admit, I was a little out of control.
At the reception that followed the, the Secretary was surrounded by a throng of admirers and autograph seekers. He was at the time the front-runner for the GOP nomination in 1996 and everyone knew it. I stayed in the background manning our donations table because our club’s entire bankroll was in a glass jar encouraging attendees to give as generously as a ‘everyone else’ already had. As Kemp prepared to leave however, something amazing happened. He caught sight of me, broke through the crowd, walked over and pulled me out the door with him
On our brief walk to back to his limousine, Jack Kemp told me that he’d been hoping to meet me all night. He said he’d heard I was a supporter, but that now he saw that I was also the most “shameless” conservative he’d ever seen! He grabbed my shoulder and encouraged me not to lose my spirit or my faith. At that moment a friend of mine snapped the photo you see above.
Seventeen years have passed and things have changed a lot! I dropped out of USC’s Economics program the following year, giving up my dream of proving the Laffer curve to help build a string of Internet start-ups. I moved to Utah and am now Senior Analyst at one of the largest technology companies in the world. Jack Kemp sadly passed in 2009 and Empower America merged with Citizens for a Sound Economy in 2004 to become Freedom Works. I still have the plastic “Dole Kemp” soda cup I used on Jack’s chartered Boeing 727 during the 1996 Presidential campaign, and an honorary lapel pin given to me by his Secret Service detail that year in thanks for my help during his campaign stop in Los Angeles.
I like to think that although my tone and methods have mellowed with age, my spirit and my values have not. In my opinion the same cannot be said for the organization that was supposed to carry on Jack’s work. The modern Freedom Works organization has lost it’s focus and it’s direction.
A prime example is the fact that today Freedom Works is engaged in a misguided effort to oust Orrin Hatch, one of this country’s most conservative Senators and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. When I asked a representative of Freedom Works about this curious effort recently, I was told that it had been decided that it was “cheaper” and more “cost effective” to defeat Senator Hatch in 2012 (in spite of his conservative record) than it would be to oust a Democrat like Utah’s own Jim Matheson!
As an analyst I’m no stranger to ROI calculations, but the decision to attack Hatch even before a primary challenge has formally been announced strikes me as cannibalistic, counter productive, and not worthy of Jack Kemp’s conservative legacy. In the 1990s Empower America was dedicated to voter education and to supporting those Congressmen and Senators who advocated conservative ideas like the flat tax, smaller government and a strong dollar. The logic behind the current anti-Hatch campaign sounds a lot like roasting your family because it’s easier than hunting!
As long as Freedom Works continues to work to marginalize Utah in the United States Senate (from their comfortable perch in Washington, DC) and to promote Olympia Snow as Chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee, they will cease to have my support. We need Senator Hatch in the Senate and we need him through 2018! He’s not only a strong and principled conservative leader, but he’s also in all the places where a Senator from Utah can do the most good.
Jack Kemp was a man of principle who believed in moving America forward no matter what the political costs. I have no doubt that he would view the current Freedom Works organization’s efforts as demeaning to the cause of economic conservatism and beneath an organization with such lofty political roots. If I had to choose a single word to describe the cannibalism of Freedom Works today, it would have to be the same one Jack used to describe me 17 years ago, only this time in a very different context:
“…shameless!”