Someone once said that the only two American (white) politicians comfortable among blacks were Bill Bradley and Jack Kemp. The common thread is obvious enough: both were former pro athletes. But it's more than that. Bradley, after all, could seem reserved and off-putting among whites. With Kemp, it was a reminder that here was a generally open guy, optimistic, positive, so comfortable in his own skin that he didn't have to care about its color.
These are refreshing qualities in any politician, perhaps most remarkably so in a party with a hallowed tradition of not overvaluing the human product. I've always thought that Jack Kemp's signature issue of "supply side economics" was megabollocks, but I never doubted that he believed it, and believed it for the best possible of reasons: he wanted a world in which everybody had a chance to flourish free of artificial restraint. It's a quality forgivable at worst, admirable at best, and it left you with the sense of Kemp as one of those rare politicians who might actually be likable outside the arena--whether athletic or political. We could use a few more like that; it's a shame to lose even one.
Afterthought: That quip about Kemp and Bradley I suppose predates the advent of the nation's first black president, Bill Clinton. An exercise left for the reader is how it applies to the incumbent who (though I like him) strikes me as one of the most emotionally remote occupants of high office in living memory.
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