THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 8, 1996 TAG: 9603080560
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Like Rhett Butler in ``Gone With the Wind,'' fleeing burning Atlanta and then, conscience-stricken, turning back to help fight the fire, Jack Kemp flew to Albany, N.Y., Wednesday to aid Steve Forbes in another lost cause.
Newt Gingrich had warned Kemp he would hurt his standing in the Republican Party if he endorsed Forbes in the GOP's New York primary. Friends in Bob Dole's camp had advised Kemp he would damage his political career.
Early in the week, in what had to have been a painful meeting of the two friends, Kemp turned down Forbes' frantic SOS; but then, casting aside caution Rhett-like, Kemp joined Forbes in New York on the eve of the primary, a little late, he conceded, but not too late, he hoped. It was.
Two or three weeks earlier would have meant much more, but then what are friends for if not to go over the cliff, arm in arm.
In a news conference, Forbes spoke of Kemp as his guru on the flat tax. ``I am gratified this extraordinary figure is now on board,'' Forbes said in Albany. ``He not only made my day, but the week, the month.''
Kemp, a man of many words befitting a former pro quarterback and congressman, declared, ``I don't know of any smarter or better-informed businessman on the face of this Earth than Steve Forbes.''
Asked on the Larry King Show how far he intended to go with Forbes, Kemp said, ``I'm going to go as long as he wants to go.''
Kemp said he told Forbes ``long ago if he ran with these ideas, I'd be with him from the git-go.''
He had stayed out of the fray in hopes of playing a healing role, Kemp said, but when Dole's surrogates began mischaracterizing the flat tax, he felt impelled to come off the sidelines.
And so the old Buffalo Bills quarterback came off the bench, hair glossy white now, only an inch above his brow as if he has been fitted snugly with a silver helmet and is calling signals for the team, as of yore, in his brisk, high-pitched, slightly hoarse voice.
As many Democrats as Republican will rejoice in Kemp's mission. It is not so much that the Democrats see him as a mischief-maker among their foes as it is that they hold him dear as evidence that Republicans do, too, have a heart.
In 1992, when Kemp spoke at an NAACP conference, along with Jesse Jackson and other black leaders, the members gave Kemp an ovation. They knew that he, once shielded by a wall of black pro linemen, judged men not by the color of their skin but by what they did.
You are more apt to find brotherhood on the gridiron than in the political arena. Politicians talk of ``reaching out,'' but all too often when a hand is extended toward them, they check before grasping it to see if it is white. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Jack Kemp said he had stayed out of the fray in hopes of playing a
healing role, but when Bob Dole's surrogates began mischaracterizing
the flat tax, he felt impelled to come off the sidelines and endorse
Steve Forbes' campaign.
by CNB