Kemp's work 'enduring to this very day'

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan chorus of mourners led by President Obama on Sunday celebrated the accomplishments and enthusiasms of Jack Kemp, a pro football star turned politician who led the charge in Congress for the package of tax cuts that became known as Reaganomics and urged Republicans to embrace minority voters.

Kemp, 73, died Saturday of cancer at his home in the suburbs of the nation's capital.

Friends and admirers described Kemp as an infectious optimist whose belief in the power of lower taxes to jump-start the economy was matched only by his commitment to civil rights.

"Jack Kemp was a man who could fiercely advocate for his own beliefs and principles while also remembering the lessons he learned years earlier on the football field: that bitter divisiveness between race and class and station only stood in the way of the 'common aim of a team to win,' " Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

Republican strategist Ed Rollins said Kemp's years in professional football were key to his attitude: "He used to say, 'I've showered with more African Americans than most people meet in a lifetime.' "

After a decade during the 1970s when the GOP targeted white voters, "Kemp more than anyone made the case for a non-racist conservatism," said Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.

Kemp represented the Buffalo area for 18 years in Congress before joining former president George H.W. Bush's Cabinet as secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Kemp was the Republican Party's 1996 vice presidential nominee in an election that he and Bob Dole lost to then-president Bill Clinton and vice president Al Gore.

Before entering politics, Kemp quarterbacked the Buffalo Bills to two American Football League championships, in 1964 and 1965. The AFL later joined the National Football League.

Like Ronald Reagan, Kemp had a knack for connecting with blue-collar voters. "He created a whole generation of Jack Kemp Republicans," said Ed Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation.