PRE-DEBATE WITH AL GORE, Jack Kemp had met every test as Bob Dole’s running mate. He’d proved himself a team player, an effective second banana who voluntarily merged his positions on immigration and affirmative action with Dole’s. “It made Jack a bigger person, being number two,” says a Dole aide. When Kemp joined Dole on the stump, both were better, Kemp more succinct, Dole more energetic. Kemp wanted to campaign more often as Dole’s warm-up act, but was rebuffed. A few Dole loyalists groused about Kemp’s appearances at black events, where the pickings for Republican votes are slim. But Kemp made news at those events. And it was “a way to soften the image of the party without compromising your stance on any issue,” the Dole aide notes.
The debate with Gore, however, underscored a sad truth about Kemp: While he had the potential to make a huge difference in the election as Dole’s running mate — more even than Lyndon Johnson did in 1960 — he’s made only a small difference. Kemp has probably added more to the ticket than the alternatives – – Sens. Connie Mack and John McCain but not much more.
For a veep candidate, what matters most is the nationally televised debate, the one shot at addressing tens of millions of voters at once. Kemp faltered. It wasn’t so much that he let Gore, an underrated but methodically effective debater, get away with exaggerations and untruths. The problem was that Kemp allowed Gore to make the case for himself and President Clinton on Kemp’s own issues — cutting taxes, enterprise zones, and a balanced budget.
Worries about Kemp’s performance began almost as soon as the debate with Gore was scheduled. Reports filtered back to Dole headquarters that Kemp wasn’t studying his briefing book. Then, his first practice debate with Sen. Judd Gregg playing Gore went poorly: Gregg won. But early preparation really didn’t matter. Kemp’s job was to take up themes Dole had laid down in speeches and in his first debate with Clinton three days before the Kemp-Gore clash. Being prepared on those issues was what counted. “If Kemp has been preparing, he’ll do well,” predicted a Kemp ally. “If he’s unfocused and rambles, he won’t score points.”
Kemp was unfocused and he rambled. He ignored Dole’s talking points. In his standard speech, Dole harps on five things: the 15 percent tax cut, a balanced budget, Clinton’s veto of two balanced budgets, the president’s signing of the biggest tax increase in history, and the fact that Medicare spending will rise 39 percent under Republican plans. Kemp never once mentioned the figure “15 percent.” Worse, he cast the Dole plan as the solution to inner-city woes, not to wage stagnation that squeezes millions of middle-class voters. He said “the have-nots,” hardly a synonym for the middle class, had done poorly under Clinton. “No Republican should ever utter the phrase ‘have-nots,'” insists a Kemp adviser.
On issue after issue — partial-birth abortion, affirmative action, trust — Kemp had been crisper, clearer, and more eloquent on Meet the Press three days earlier. There, Kemp said Clinton’s backing of partial-birth abortion is “the most extreme position in America today.” In the debate, he said only that Dole wouldn’t have vetoed the ban on such abortions. On both occasions, Kemp said his position on affirmative action hadn’t changed. But on Meet the Press, he declared, “I have always opposed and always will any affirmative action program that leads to a quota. . . . The president has said mend it, but he has no plan to mend it.” In the debate, he let Gore claim he had flip-flopped crassly on CCRI, the popular California referendum on racial preferences, without response. Kemp had a nice riff on trust on the TV show, saying “the most important part” of the character issue is, “Who can you trust?” That echoed Dole. But against Gore, Kemp was silent.
Kemp knew he’d done poorly. He complained afterwards about Jim Lehrer’s questions on Haiti and the family leave act. Haiti is peripheral, but family leave is a staple of Clinton-Gore rhetoric, so there was no reason for surprise. Kemp’s real problem was strategic. No one expected him to sacrifice himself (and his high standing with journalists) and go after Clinton the relentless way Dan Quayle did in his 1992 debate with Gore. But a few nicks out of Clinton’s hide would have helped. In 1992, Gore left Clinton undefended; this time, Kemp left Dole unprotected. Then, the Bush White House greeted Quayle’s return with a South Lawn rally. When Quayle’s limo arrived, Bush rushed out to shake his hand as White House aides cheered. On October 10, the day after Kemp debated Gore, the GOP candidates appeared together in Cincinnati. Dole thanked Kemp for doing “a great job,” then turned away as Kemp addressed the crowd. Others in conservative circles were less reticent in their dismay at Kemp’s performance. “It was a disaster,” Rush Limbaugh told his radio audience that same day. “We need new leaders.”
by Fred Barnes
