Kemp Brother’s Laguna Home Suddenly a Media Center

LAGUNA BEACH —  A week before the Republican National Convention, Jack Kemp’s wife, Joanne, called his brother Tom at his Laguna Beach home.

“She said, ‘We’re probably going to stay with you if it’s all right. Jack doesn’t think there’s really a place for him at the convention,’ ” Tom Kemp said Saturday afternoon.

“Now he’s not just only in the middle of the convention, but he’s on the ticket as the vice presidential candidate--it’s just stunning,” said Kemp, 65.

Since speculation Friday that his brother would be Dole’s choice for a running mate, a media whirl has engulfed Kemp’s waterfront home. His phone rings constantly and reporters and photographers pass each other along the flower-lined brick path to his front door.

But the frenzy of calls and interviews has not altered the calm of Kemp’s home. The dining room holds a glorious view of the ocean, which rolls up to the edge of his property. As he discussed what to wear for an appearance on the “Larry King Show” Saturday evening, body boarders rode the swells behind him.

“I’ve gone from being in the cradle of obscurity to my 15 minutes in the sun,” he said.

Noting his recent existence in the shadows of the Republican Party, Jack Kemp recently called this time in his career his wilderness years. It seemed that support for both his social policy and economic ideas had dried up, leaving only tenacious clumps of loyal followers.

So if Jack Kemp suddenly is appealing as a candidate of national stature, it’s because he has been invited into the church to give the same message he has been preaching in the wilderness: supply-side economics, tax cuts to invigorate the economy, racial inclusion in the party and conservative values.

“Jack hasn’t moved--essentially these are the same ideas he’s been talking about for years,” Kemp said. “I think the Dole campaign realized it needed to have a centerpiece of economic growth and that’s something Jack believes so passionately in.”

Tom Kemp also passionately believes in supply-side economics--the doctrine that says tax cuts and policies that benefit more affluent people will improve the economy and trickle down to the less wealthy and poor.

Asked if he supported Dole’s candidacy before his brother was on the ticket, Kemp, a retired businessman who volunteers at Pepperdine University training Russian and Ukrainian businessmen, said: “Let’s put it this way: I’m much more enthusiastic now.”

His brother, Tom Kemp said, is the ideological heir to Ronald Reagan, and now is the time to return to Reagan’s principles. It first veered off course when George Bush “surrendered” on his no new taxes pledge and then because of the recession, Tom Kemp said.

“When times are hard you look for who’s causing the problems,” Kemp said.

Tom Kemp, a lifelong Republican, credits his parents with instilling in their four children--all boys, all born in Los Angeles--a compassionate conservatism that underpins the whole family, not only the philosophies of his brother’s political career.

The boys all worked for their father’s trucking business in Hollywood, and it was at the company that they first got to be close to men of other races and the experience and shaped a lifelong philosophy of racial harmony by way of economic empowerment.

“My father’s company was small, only about six drivers, but one or two were black and we drove together with them, they were our friends.”

“I think that experience along with football--in football Jack as the quarterback was dependent upon his teammates--made Jack see that a true economic program has to be one of the good shepherd--lifting up everyone and leaving no one behind.

“He really believes that if it doesn’t work for everyone then it doesn’t work,” Kemp said.