When I first encountered Jeff Bell, he was debating Bill Bradley, the Democratic candidate for Senate from New Jersey. Bell was the Republican candidate and the underdog to Bradley, a famous basketball star at Princeton and later for the New York Knicks. It was 1978.
Bell was talking about tolls on a bridge, a tedious subject he managed to make interesting. If the toll was $5, not many cars would pay to cross the bridge, he said. A $1 toll, however, would attract so many cars it would earn more money than a toll five times larger.
The toll analogy was Bell’s way of justifying tax cuts. They incentivize. They give people and companies more money to spend and invest, produce and create jobs. It was such a simple and compelling argument that after a few debates, Bradley seemed to give up trying to refute it.
Bell won the debates and lost the election. But that’s not the end of the tale. In 1986, Bradley was the leading Democrat in shaping and then passing a tax-reform bill that broadened the tax base and cut the top rate on individual income from 50 percent to 28 percent. It was a historic achievement that President Trump’s tax bill didn’t quite match.
Bradley argued the case for tax reform brilliantly. Had he learned the efficacy of tax cuts from his debates with Bell? I’m not the only one who thinks so. Tax reform consisted of wiping out tax preferences and breaks for special interests to bolster a free-market economy, a goal Bell and Bradley shared.
Bell was as great an influence on national figures like Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp as he was a bust at winning elections for himself. He died last week at 74, still focused on shattering impediments to economic freedom.
In the debates with Bradley, Bell would wave a dollar bill. He was promoting a “dollar as good as gold.” Indeed, he advocated a gold standard, which would make the Federal Reserve, which he regarded as elitist, an unnecessary relic.
Bell rejected the incremental approach. “He didn’t have the patience,” his friend David Smick says. He favored the bold play, championing one big issue to revolutionize economic policy and stir the nation. When he considered running for a House seat in Virginia, an adviser told him he’d have to concentrate on smaller issues like traffic congestion. Bell yawned and declined to run.
He had no interest in the politics of personal advancement. And there was always a moral element to his campaigns. A convert to Catholicism, “he brought so many people closer to God,” says his friend Ann Corkery. He opposed abortion and same-sex marriage and said so.
Nor was he eager to get rich, as so many Washington consultants have. When offered a partnership in a new consulting firm, Bell said no. The firm went on to prosper. He published two very good books that generated only modest sales.
After living in Virginia for decades, Bell returned to New Jersey in 2014 to run for the Senate again. Little statewide fame, much less political clout, lingered from his 1978 race and another in 1982. In that second campaign, the country was in recession and the Reagan tax cut of 1981 with which it was associated hadn’t gone into effect. That doomed him.
But the GOP race in 2014 against appointed Democratic senator Cory Booker was wide open. Bell felt there were two ways he could win. One was ousting Booker, the other spurring interest in a gold standard.
He narrowly won a four-way Republican primary and confronted Booker’s well-financed campaign with a meager treasury of his own. One potential donor told Bell he would have to listen to his advice first. He recommended the campaign theme be Wall Street vs. Main Street with Bell on Main Street’s side. Bell said this was an “interesting idea,” then ignored it.
His headquarters was in the lobby of a hotel. Six volunteers sat on sofas and used the hotel’s WiFi. Bell’s advertising consisted of radio and mail. He appealed by mail for money to air a TV ad and apologized for having to ask.
“Every day people call me and say that I have a great message, a great history and a vision for the future,” his appeal said. “I don’t disagree, but I tell them TV is expensive. They said put a TV commercial together. People will chip in to help pay for it. . . . I caved in and created a spot. Help me put it on the air.” The appeal worked. One ad ran.
Bell sent a final letter just before the election. “I’ve staked everything on this campaign not because I desire to hold elective office,” he wrote, “but because I saw no other way to fix what’s wrong with the economy.”
How many candidates could honestly say they had no desire to hold office? I can think of only one.
