The roller-coaster trajectory of this year’s Republican presidential primary campaign left many pundits humbled and out of breath. Not Jude Wanniski. The supply-side guru, Forbes adviser, and tireless disseminator of newsletters has concocted the most original interpretation thus far of the campaign. In a fax dated March 15, Wanniski surveyed the political landscape and announced: “The biggest winner of all is Jack Kemp.”
Quite a novel interpretation of recent events. This wouldn’t be the same Jack Kemp who, in the space of a month, was going to endorse Forbes and then Dole and then Forbes and then didn’t and then did, but only after his endorsement was of no practical use to the Forbes campaign; who decided to campaign for his man and then didn’t because his man asked him not to; whose increasingly feckless behavior has left his many admirers scratching their heads in puzzlement? Yes, that Jack Kemp.
Wanniski’s reasoning is typically labyrinthine, but it should be noted that Kemp remains one of the few political figures in America who continue to take Wanniski seriously. A convenient, if depressing, symbiosis is taking root: Wanniski is becoming one of the few pundits in America who continue to take Kemp seriously “Today,” Wanniski writes, “[Kemp] is vice-presidential material, whether Dole likes that idea or not.” No doubt Sen. Dole is listening intently.
