OBIT

Jack Kemp, Former Congressman, Dies

Former QB showed GOP supply-side economics.

Jack Kemp, the football player turned congressman and Republican vice-presidential candidate in 1996, passed away last night from cancer at his home in Bethesda, Maryland. Once a quarterback for the Bills, where he won two championships, Kemp then became a congressman in Buffalo and was one of the first Republicans to embrace supply-side economics. He also worked to recruit minorities to the Republican Party. Bob Dole chose him as a running mate in 1996, though the two did not like each other. Kemp once said, “In a recent fire, Bob Dole’s library burned down. Both books were lost. And he hadn’t even finished coloring one of them.” Kemp was 73.