The results of the New York Republican primary should be the final proof that conservatives should move beyond the Jack Kemp model of politics. But you shouldn’t listen to me. You should listen to Jack Kemp’s former constituents.
Jack Kemp brought a great deal of optimism to the often dreary and defeatist world of conservative politics. He believed that conservatives could win over ancestral working-class white Democrats and nonwhites to free market politics. Kemp’s own career in upstate New York indicated that this was possible (at least among working-class whites.)
