Jack Kemp: A happy warrior in a world of challenges

It was a Big Moment when I heard, at 6 a.m. last Sunday, that Jack Kemp had died. To get only 73 years out of such a lion, such a heart, such a first-class temperament, such a happy warrior, seems somehow unfair. Of course, it isn't left to us mere mortals to charge God with cheating us.

What a gift the Almighty gave us in Jack Kemp.

It can be difficult to describe to younger Republicans and conservatives what the rise of Jack French Kemp meant to us all back in the 1970s. Into the dark malaise of the ghastly decade that was the 1970s came the starburst of Kemp. Offering a tribute in National Review Online, Rick Brookhiser said: Reagan was sunny; Kemp was a perpetual solar flare.

Just so. This writer remembers an unforgettable Kemp speech as keynote at the 1984 Missouri Republican State Convention in Springfield. Kemp was at his most incandescent, mesmerizing the faithful, evangelizing like no other for low taxes, economic freedom for all, civil rights, sound money and free trade as the true Lincolnian tradition of a new majority Republican Party.

In October of that same year, the GOP congressman most in demand for events for his colleagues made an election-eve campaign visit to Cape Girardeau for the late U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson.

There was a fundraiser at the Holiday Inn, preceded by a private event. Despite a brutal day that had begun in Iowa and included four stops, Kemp's good humor never wavered as he preached "small-d" democratic capitalism and opportunity for all.

Kemp's tireless advocacy for the less fortunate was his hallmark. Guided by his values, he sought reforms large and small -- a stalwart proponent of civil rights, enterprise zones in inner cities, and awareness about the dangers of lead paint and assistance removing it, among others.

Perhaps because of his experience representing Buffalo, Kemp passionately argued that a long-term strategy of writing off minorities and urban areas would be destructive to the Republican Party. But he did more than simply take a conservative message to minorities and the inner cities. He demonstrated how Republican principles can have a profound, positive impact in these communities.

Kemp was inspired by a philosophy, not political expediency. He did not see a world divided by partisan or racial lines, but one full of challenges that could be overcome only by working together.

While Kemp never served in the majority in his 18 years in the House, he made an extraordinary number of his initiatives become reality. He was the most influential member of the House of Representatives not to hold a leadership position since James Madison.

In eulogizing an old friend, Sir Winston Churchill once said, "He stored up his treasure in the hearts of his friends."

In Jack Kemp's case, that treasure went far beyond his friends to encompass all Americans, indeed all humanity.

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into my kingdom."

Peter Kinder of Cape Girardeau is the lieutenant governor of Missouri.