Jack Kemp, All American Ideological Hack: Obama Trying to 'Buy Votes'

By Lee Russ

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 07:51 PM

Former pro football quarterback and eternal anti-tax agitator Jack Kemp had a phone conversation today with the equally ideological and agitating Neil Cavuto on Cavuto's Fox show today. The reason for the call? So Kemp and Cavuto could plant yet another seed of insanity into the presidential election. Kemp's latest is that Obama's tax plan, by giving what amount to rebates to taxpayers who owed no taxes, was "close"--real close--to "buying votes."

Now we all know that vote-buying is evil, a horrible, horrible thing that undercuts the foundations of democracy. What we didn't know until Jacko the Kempster told us, is that sending tax dollars to people who didn't pay taxes is a form of that evil practice.

All of which must come as a great shock to the president and the leaders of congress, who cooperated to send out that "stimulus" check a few months ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that stimulus check go to people who owed no taxes? Didn't it?

So, Mr. Kemp, why was the stimulus check not a case of vote buying? And, if you think it was, as your many statements concerning government spending and/or taxes as a form of that activity indicate is possible, who was doing the "buying?" All incumbents, making it some kind of bipartisan vote buying? And if so, what the hell good is bipartisan vote buying?

Or, Mr. Kemp, is all of this nothing more than the most recent illustration of your ideological blinders? The concept of "vote buying" simply has no application to the bulk of the circumstances where you apply it. Vote buying as an illegal/immoral undermining of democracy means a deliberate attempt to trade money or value for someone's vote. It only applies when the purpose of offering the money or value is to get a specific person to vote a specific way. It has no application to a policy adopted in the sincere belief that the policy is ultimately in the best interests of the electorate as a whole.

Your attempt to broaden that definition to encompass any federal law which spends money in a way that benefits a specific group reflects only your core ideology that the federal government should not be spending tax revenues on the populace. It's pretty clever, Jacko, the way you simply redefined vote buying in a way that automatically demonizes all efforts at social spending. Want to help the poor in a way that involves government spending? Does that policy make the poor more likely to vote for you? If yes to both questions, you are an underhanded vote-buying politician. If you can just get us to buy your definition, then we have bought your entire philosophy.

Neither Obama nor any other politician who simply disagrees with your core belief becomes magically transformed into an unethical buyer of votes merely by virtue of that disagreement. No, what you need is some kind of evidence or indication that Obama does not actually believe that his tax policy will benefit the general public. And we both know that if you had any such evidence you would now be blaring it from the top of the tallest Fox anchor you could find.

Your equating of disagreement with dishonesty and danger, if not outright evil, is a sign of the extremism which has always characterized your views, from your role in selling the true "Voodoo" of supply side economics to your statements regarding the fundamental dangers/evil inherent in liberalism. As to the latter, I refer specifically to this little gem:

Frankly, the only difference between the 1930s war on traditional culture in Germany and the current liberal agenda is the fact that President Bush can veto many of their plans and has appointed Supreme Court Judges who will also rule against them. Perhaps the hard leftists in America aren’t as bad as the Nazis - but it isn’t for lack of trying to grab control of this society. Even if they may not be as bad, they certainly want to leave our society vulnerable to anything from Islamofascists to anarchists to carbon credit worshipers. Communication from Jack Kemp to Timothy Birdnow, January 14, 2008.

Of course it's probably pure coincidence that you make this vote buying charge on television one week before the election. And it's probably another coincidence that Mr. Cavuto, despite being passed off as a journalist of some kind, made no effort to point out the deficiencies in your claim.