What's the name of the first baseman?

National Review, Nov 30, 1992

THE Bush-Quayle buttons had scarcely been carted to the compacter when attention turned to the 1996 GOP nomination. Early handicapping in the press gave Jack Kemp the lead.

We are inclined to think that any nomination today of the next Republican candidate is a bit premature. A week is a long time in politics, four years an eternity, and the market (a/k/a the primaries) will decide the nominee. For the moment, however, most conservatives will feel comfortable with Mr. Kemp as their leading spokesman. As a congressman, he helped fashion the economic issues which propelled Ronald Reagan into the White House, and which propelled George Bush out of it once he ignored them. As HUD Secretary, Mr. Kemp was a lonely voice articulating an agenda of government downsizing and personal empowerment which might have given the President something to rnn on. In both these incarnations, he has been steadfast on the abortion issue, which gives him a tie to the GOP's socially conservative wing, while his energy and ingenuousness make him personally attractive to Republicans and non-Republicans alike.

Jack Kemp has his work cut out for him over the next four years, however. The downside of Kemp's upbeat nature is that he seems to believe that all stories can have happy endings, and (relatedly) that none of his opponents need be enemies. As a result, he has been reluctant to engage issues which a nationally successful conservative movement must address (crime, quotas, the culture) and which other conservative spokesmen (Dan Quayle, William Bennett, Dick Cheney, Patrick Buchanan) have tackled. Kemp must also overcome Republican liberals--incompetent and dull-witted ones like Pete Wilson, and intelligent ones like William Weld.

Kemp, who has spent two decades on Capitol Hill or in the Cabinet, has no need to prove himself as an officeholder. He will have four years he can devote entirely to affirming his position as an intellectual leader. We wish him--and Mr. Quayle, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Cheney, and Mr. Buchanan--well.