AMERICAN FOOTBALL

Jack Kemp had many achievements in his momentous life. Among others, he was instrumental in bringing Queen Elizabeth II her first public hug.

You might have thought from the hubbub surrounding President Barack Obama's recent European trip that First Lady Michelle Obama's spontaneous royal arm around the waist - which the queen immediately reciprocated - broke all precedents, as well as protocol. Not true.

That distinction belongs, as it turns out, to the late Alice Frazier, then a 67-year-old District of Columbia public housing resident. She wrapped Her Royal Highness in a Big Bear-hug embrace during the queen's 13-day visit to America in 1991.

Who in the world the queen would bring to a public housing project? I knew it had to be Kemp, then the secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President George HW Bush.


Would anyone else in stodgy Washington have had the desire, the enthusiasm and the steamroller perseverance to bring the queen and a rare spotlight of public attention to America's vastly overlooked underclass? I think not.

The stunt was pure Jack. "

He would do anything to bring attention to his urban empowerment agenda, "which included taking management and ownership of public housing," liberated "from negligent, fraudulent or incompetent bureaucrats and government contractors.

Memories of the queen's hug come to mind when I heard about Kemp's death. My condolences go out to his family and friends. He will be fondly remembered, I am sure, as the sort of conservative who liberals and conservatives liked probably did not love enough.

His party had listened more to the real social thinkers and problem solvers like Kemp - and a little bit less to the mirror-kissing showboaters on the sidelines like Rush Limbaugh - they would be stuck with the shrinking iceberg of a party on which their future teeters today.

Back in the 1980s, Kemp looked like the future of the conservative movement. His advice on issues like tax cuts helped build the Ronald Reagan conservative coalition that made him president. No one did more to put a friendly, caring, supply-side conservative face on the fight against racism and poverty.

In Kemp's world, government was not just "the problem," as Reagan had quipped. It was a resource to help people to help themselves. "If you want to have less of something, tax it," he preached to me during an interview at HUD. "If you want more of something, subsidize it." In that way, he was convinced that you could reverse the decay in jobs, housing, education and enterprise in urban America through well-placed for business tax cuts, school vouchers for families and other actions aimed at subsidizing good choices.

He scoured the country for "neighborhood assets," the ordinary men and women who in every neighborhood, given a chance, make better local leaders and organizers than government intermediaries do.

Kemp did not just talk about blacks, Hispanics or the poor. He knew real people. He lunched in soup kitchens and nights spent in low-income apartments.

Inside every "ghetto," he saw a neighborhood itching to be "empowered" and "liberated," perhaps with a little "seed corn" from government or private foundations.

His days as a star pro football quarterback, he half-joked, gave him a bracing respect for the black players who protected him from physical harm every week.

And in the days of big, personal civil rights decisions, he walked the walk. He joined a boycott of January 1965 an American Football League All-Star Game after black players had been refused admission to nightclubs and taxis in New Orleans. Kemp helped get the game moved to Houston.

But the former quarterback fumbled his attempts to be president or Vice President, partly because of his quarterback's proud indifference to the advice of his campaign advisers. He seemed to think his ideas, tirelessly pitched, were enough to win voters over to his side. Not quite.

As Obama's White House victory showed, candidates must constantly relate their agendas back to the concerns of their audiences. Americans are eager to lend a hand, but they usually want to know "Where's mine?" before they ask how they can help somebody else.

Kemp's passing in Maryland ironically coincided with a "town meeting" across the river in Virginia of GOP leaders. They were looking for ways to rebuild their embattled party and reconnect with voters. Kemp showed Republicans how to extend their reach beyond their usual base. That was back when he looked like the party's future. Now the party sounds like a Ronnie Milsap tune: "The future is not what it used to be."