[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 70 (Thursday, May 7, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5300-S5301]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TRIBUTE TO JACK KEMP

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the Nation says its last farewell to 
Jack Kemp tomorrow afternoon. But Americans will long remember the 
tremendous impact he has had on our lives and on our politics. So today 
I would like to add my voice to the many others who have spoken well of 
this good man.
  The arc of Jack's life is well known: middle-class son of a small 
businessman and his social worker wife. Jack never wanted to be 
anything but a professional football player, and he worked very hard at 
it. Good enough to get drafted by the Lions but not quite good enough 
to make the team, Jack dug in, passing briefly through a few football 
teams before being sidelined by an injury and ending up with the 
Buffalo Bills, where he became one of the great quarterbacks of all 
time. Jack showed his skills early on with the Bills. In his very first 
game, he completed 21 of 35 passes, including 2 touchdowns for 230 
yards. By the time he retired in 1969, he would rank first in passes, 
completions, and passing yardage among all American Football League 
quarterbacks.
  But Jack's restless mind was stirring even before he left the field. 
Teammates would later recall that on long plane rides, while they would 
be reading playbooks, Jack would be reading economic theory or the 
latest ``National Review.'' During the off season, Jack volunteered on 
political campaigns, including the gubernatorial campaign of Ronald 
Reagan. It was all the training he would need.
  After retiring from pro football, his path to politics was as sure as 
his 10-yard pass. And so was his path to success. Armed with a kinetic 
personality, a sharp mind, and a passion for ideas and for people, Jack 
set about with the zeal of a preacher to spread his convictions about 
the economic benefits of sharp tax cuts. He was so convincing that tax 
cuts became the centerpiece of his party's platform in 1980, the basis 
of its revival and, most importantly, the cause of the unprecedented 
prosperity of the next two decades.
  Growing up, Jack was the captain of every team for which he ever 
played. That didn't change when he came to Washington. He was calling 
the plays here now, and people were eager to follow. He was as likable 
as he was persuasive, all the more so because he didn't seek out 
popularity.
  He was always driven by something else. At his core, Jack was 
motivated by nothing more than a deep desire to see America live up to 
its founding promise of equality for everyone, regardless of color, 
religion, or background. The fight for equality was Jack's consuming 
passion.
  Like everyone who grew up playing sports, he knew firsthand that 
winning ball games had nothing to do with color. But as a quarterback, 
he appreciated this more than most. The crowds may have cheered for 
Jack, but he knew that every time he threw a pass or ran for a 
touchdown, an offensive line stood guard, many of them African 
American. These were his teammates, his friends, and he witnessed the 
discrimination they encountered many times. But there was one moment 
from those days that always lived in Jack's memory. It was in 1960. 
Jack was playing for the Chargers at the time. They were in Houston for 
the AFL Championship, and during the playing of the ``National 
Anthem,'' Jack looked over toward his father at the 50-yard line. The 
father of his cocaptain, Charlie McNeil, was not there. He later found 
out that Mr. McNeil had been forced to sit in a section of the end zone 
that was roped off for Blacks. It was one of many terrible indignities 
that would make Jack a restless promoter of equality throughout his 
life.
  A self-described bleeding heart conservative, Jack's childlike love 
for America and all it promised was evident until the end. In a letter 
to his grandchildren just this past November, Jack said his first 
thought upon learning that an African American had won the Presidency 
was: ``Is this a great country or not?'' ``Just think,'' he wrote, ``a 
little over 40 years ago, Blacks in America had trouble even voting in 
our country, much less thinking about running for the highest office in 
the land.''
  Jack was not your average politician, but he was a necessary one, 
constantly challenging the establishment. He was a political 
entrepreneur, restless to get things done. Colleagues remember how 
Cabinet meetings were always livelier with Jack there--whether he was 
rolling his eyes in disagreement or squirming in his chair. No room 
ever seemed big enough to contain him. Sometimes when congressional 
leadership would meet over in the White House, Jack's former colleague 
and ours, Trent Lott, would have to kick him under the table to keep 
him from saying something he might regret later on. Convention just 
never suited him, and the Nation and our party was always a lot better 
because of it.
  We will miss Jack's insistence, his passion, his energy, and we will 
miss seeing him, the broad smile, the snow-white hair, plowing into a 
crowd, bounding up on a stage, and hurling an imaginary football off 
into the distance.
  Jack was a happy, raspy-voiced evangelist for the ideas that shaped a 
generation and revived a political party. He believed, rightly, that 
conservative ideas were universal--that if they applied to one group, 
they applied to all groups. And he rolled up his sleeves to prove it, 
whether as a candidate for Vice President, a Cabinet Secretary spending 
a night in a Philadelphia housing project, or in these last years as an 
advocate for many of the causes he believed in, a speaker, a wise party 
elder and, above all, a devoted husband to his beloved Joanne, father, 
and grandfather.
  It is hard to imagine someone of Jack's energy and enthusiasm 
succumbing to anything; he was always so full of life, the vital center 
of every room he entered and every debate. We will miss his passion. We 
are all grateful for his goodness. And as we say our final goodbye to 
Jack French Kemp, we are consoled by the thought that after a painful 
illness, he has broken away now like a wide receiver from the pack, 
into the welcoming embrace of a loving God.

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