-
Jack Kemp
- The Bleeding-Heart Conservative Who Changed America
- Narrated by: Morton Kondracke, Fred Barnes
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
"The purpose of politics is not to defeat your opponent as much as it is to provide superior leadership and better ideas than the opposition." (Jack Kemp)
The late 1970s were miserable for America. It was the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era, a time of high unemployment, ruinous inflation, gasoline lines, communist advances, and bottomed-out US morale. In the 1980s, it all turned around: "Stagflation" ended and nearly two decades of prosperity ensued. The Soviet Union retreated, then collapsed. America again believed in itself. And around the world, democratic capitalism was deemed "the end of history".
Ronald Reagan’s policies sparked the American renaissance, but the Gipper’s leadership is only part of the story. The economic theory that underpinned America’s success was pioneered by a star professional quarterback turned self-taught intellectual and "bleeding-heart conservative": Jack Kemp.
Kemp’s role in a pivotal period in American history is at last illuminated in this first-ever biography, which also has lessons for the politics of today. Kemp was the congressional champion of supply-side economics - the idea that lowering taxes would foster growth. Even today, almost no one advocates a return to a top income tax rate of 70 percent. Kemp didn’t just challenge the Democratic establishment. He also encouraged his fellow Republicans to be growth (not austerity) minded, open their tent to minorities and blue-collar workers, battle poverty and discrimination, and once again become "the party of Lincoln". Kemp approached politics the same way he played quarterback for the Buffalo Bills: With a refusal to accept defeat. Yet he also was incapable of personal attack, arguing always on the level of ideas. He regarded opponents as adversaries, not enemies, and often cooperated with them to get things done. Despite many ups and downs, including failed presidential and vice-presidential bids, he represented a positive, idealistic, compassionate Republicanism. Drawing on never-published papers and more than one hundred Kemp Oral History Project interviews, noted journalists Morton Kondracke and Fred Barnes trace Kemp’s life, from his childhood through his pro football career, to his influential years as a congressman and cabinet secretary.
As the American Dream seems to be waning and polarized politics stifles Washington, Kemp is a model for what politics ought to be. The Republican party and the nation are in desperate need of another Kemp.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Taxes Have Consequences
- An Income Tax History of the United States
- By: Arthur B. Laffer PhD, Brian Domitrovic PhD, Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield PhD
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive history of the effect of the income tax on the economy.
-
-
Thorough history of taxes over time
- By Ben on 10-19-24
By: Arthur B. Laffer PhD, and others
-
The Center Holds
- Obama and His Enemies
- By: Jonathan Alter
- Narrated by: Jonathan Alter
- Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, Jonathan Alter uses his unmatched access and deep knowledge of politics and history to produce the first full account of America at the crossroads. He pierces the bubble of the White House and of the presidential campaigns with exclusive reporting and rare historical insight. More than a campaign book, this is the epic story of an embattled president facing a historic moment he considered more pivotal than 2008.
-
-
The Best Telling of the 2012 Campaign So Far
- By Mike on 06-11-13
By: Jonathan Alter
-
Dark Money
- The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
- By: Jane Mayer
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 16 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers? The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against "big government" led to the rise of a broad-based conservative movement.
-
-
"I just want my fair share--which is all of it."
- By Darwin8u on 11-28-16
By: Jane Mayer
-
My Life
- By: Bill Clinton
- Narrated by: Bill Clinton
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
President Bill Clinton's My Life is the strikingly candid portrait of a global leader who decided early in life to devote his intellectual and political gifts, and his extraordinary capacity for hard work, to serving the public. It is the fullest, most concretely detailed, most nuanced account of a presidency ever written, and a testament to the positive impact on America and on the world of his work and his ideals.
-
-
Absorbing -- don't believe the haters' reviews
- By D.J. Grothe on 06-22-04
By: Bill Clinton
-
The Red and the Blue
- The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism
- By: Steve Kornacki
- Narrated by: Steve Kornacki, Ron Butler
- Length: 17 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Red and the Blue, cable news star and acclaimed journalist Steve Kornacki follows the twin paths of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, two larger-than-life politicians who exploited the weakened structure of their respective parties to attain the highest offices. For Clinton, that meant contorting himself around the various factions of the Democratic party to win the presidency. Gingrich employed a scorched-earth strategy to upend the permanent Republican minority in the House, making him speaker.
-
-
Simply marvelous
- By Hector Gonzalez on 10-04-18
By: Steve Kornacki
-
This Will Not Pass
- Trump, Biden and the Battle for American Democracy
- By: Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the authoritative, “deeply reported” (The Wall Street Journal) account of an eighteen-month crisis in American democracy that will be seared into the country’s political memory for decades to come. With stunning, in-the-room detail, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns show how both our political parties confronted a series of national traumas, including the coronavirus pandemic, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and the political brinksmanship of President Biden’s first year in the White House.
-
-
Ammerca's Futura does Not included Trump
- By K. Lilja-King on 05-12-22
By: Jonathan Martin, and others
-
Taxes Have Consequences
- An Income Tax History of the United States
- By: Arthur B. Laffer PhD, Brian Domitrovic PhD, Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield PhD
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The definitive history of the effect of the income tax on the economy.
-
-
Thorough history of taxes over time
- By Ben on 10-19-24
By: Arthur B. Laffer PhD, and others
-
The Center Holds
- Obama and His Enemies
- By: Jonathan Alter
- Narrated by: Jonathan Alter
- Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, Jonathan Alter uses his unmatched access and deep knowledge of politics and history to produce the first full account of America at the crossroads. He pierces the bubble of the White House and of the presidential campaigns with exclusive reporting and rare historical insight. More than a campaign book, this is the epic story of an embattled president facing a historic moment he considered more pivotal than 2008.
-
-
The Best Telling of the 2012 Campaign So Far
- By Mike on 06-11-13
By: Jonathan Alter
-
Dark Money
- The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
- By: Jane Mayer
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 16 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers? The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against "big government" led to the rise of a broad-based conservative movement.
-
-
"I just want my fair share--which is all of it."
- By Darwin8u on 11-28-16
By: Jane Mayer
-
My Life
- By: Bill Clinton
- Narrated by: Bill Clinton
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
President Bill Clinton's My Life is the strikingly candid portrait of a global leader who decided early in life to devote his intellectual and political gifts, and his extraordinary capacity for hard work, to serving the public. It is the fullest, most concretely detailed, most nuanced account of a presidency ever written, and a testament to the positive impact on America and on the world of his work and his ideals.
-
-
Absorbing -- don't believe the haters' reviews
- By D.J. Grothe on 06-22-04
By: Bill Clinton
-
The Red and the Blue
- The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism
- By: Steve Kornacki
- Narrated by: Steve Kornacki, Ron Butler
- Length: 17 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Red and the Blue, cable news star and acclaimed journalist Steve Kornacki follows the twin paths of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, two larger-than-life politicians who exploited the weakened structure of their respective parties to attain the highest offices. For Clinton, that meant contorting himself around the various factions of the Democratic party to win the presidency. Gingrich employed a scorched-earth strategy to upend the permanent Republican minority in the House, making him speaker.
-
-
Simply marvelous
- By Hector Gonzalez on 10-04-18
By: Steve Kornacki
-
This Will Not Pass
- Trump, Biden and the Battle for American Democracy
- By: Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the authoritative, “deeply reported” (The Wall Street Journal) account of an eighteen-month crisis in American democracy that will be seared into the country’s political memory for decades to come. With stunning, in-the-room detail, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns show how both our political parties confronted a series of national traumas, including the coronavirus pandemic, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and the political brinksmanship of President Biden’s first year in the White House.
-
-
Ammerca's Futura does Not included Trump
- By K. Lilja-King on 05-12-22
By: Jonathan Martin, and others
-
The Amateur
- Barack Obama in the White House
- By: Edward Klein
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s amateur hour at the White House. So says New York Times best-selling author Edward Klein in his political exposé The Amateur. Tapping into the public’s growing sentiment that President Obama is in over his head, The Amateur argues that Obama’s toxic combination of incompetence and arrogance has run our nation and his presidency off the rails.
-
-
Interesting, revealing and a little - scary...
- By rlovegreen on 05-17-12
By: Edward Klein
-
Trumpocracy
- The Corruption of the American Republic
- By: David Frum
- Narrated by: David Frum, James Anderson Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best-selling author, former White House speechwriter, and Atlantic columnist and media commentator David Frum explains why President Trump has undermined our most important institutions in ways even the most critical media has missed, in this thoughtful and hard-hitting book that is a warning for democracy and America's future. Quietly, steadily, Trump and his administration are damaging the tenets and accepted practices of American democracy, perhaps irrevocably.
-
-
Read this instead of Fire and Fury
- By Jonathan Schwarz on 01-27-18
By: David Frum
-
JFK, Conservative
- By: Ira Stoll
- Narrated by: J. Paul Boehmer
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John F. Kennedy is lionized by liberals. He inspired Bill Clinton to go into politics and Lyndon B. Johnson to push for landmark civil rights laws. His champions insist he would have done "great liberal things" had he not been killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. But what if we have completely misunderstood him? What if we judge him by the lengthy record of his actual political career? His two great causes were anticommunism and economic growth.
-
-
JFK: Conservative?
- By Wayne on 03-15-17
By: Ira Stoll
-
The Promise
- President Obama, Year One
- By: Jonathan Alter
- Narrated by: Jonathan Alter
- Length: 20 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barack Obama’s inauguration as president on January 20, 2009, inspired the world. But the great promise of “Change We Can Believe In” was immediately tested by the threat of another Great Depression, a worsening war in Afghanistan, and an entrenched and deeply partisan system of business as usual in Washington. Despite all the coverage, the backstory of Obama’s historic first year in office has until now remained a mystery.
-
-
Tiresome
- By Matthew on 05-21-10
By: Jonathan Alter
-
Billionaire at the Barricades
- The Populist Revolution from Reagan to Trump
- By: Laura Ingraham
- Narrated by: Laura Ingraham
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans didn’t just go to the polls in 2016. They joined a movement that swept the unlikeliest of candidates, Donald Trump, into the Oval Office. Can he complete his agenda? Or will his opponents in the media, protester class, and political establishment block his efforts and choke off the movement he represents?
-
-
The unlikelist US president!
- By Wayne on 11-15-17
By: Laura Ingraham
-
Ambition, Pragmatism, and Party
- A Political Biography of Gerald R. Ford
- By: Scott Kaufman
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 16 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Within eight turbulent months in 1974 Gerald Ford went from the United States House of Representatives, where he was the minority leader, to the White House as the country's first and only unelected president. His unprecedented rise to power, after Richard Nixon's equally unprecedented fall, has garnered the lion's share of scholarly attention devoted to America's 38th president. But Gerald Ford's (1913-2006) life and career in and out of Washington spanned nearly the entire 20th century.
-
-
Exceptional
- By JayJay on 04-26-18
By: Scott Kaufman
-
President Carter
- The White House Years
- By: Stuart E. Eizenstat, Madeleine Albright - foreword
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell, Madeleine Albright, Stuart E. Eizenstat - preface & introduction
- Length: 37 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stuart E. Eizenstat was at Jimmy Carter’s side from his political rise in Georgia through four years in the White House, where he served as Chief Domestic Policy Adviser. He was directly involved in all domestic and economic decisions as well as in many foreign policy ones. Famous for the legal pads he took to every meeting, he draws on more than 7500 pages of notes and 350 interviews of all the major figures of the time, to write the comprehensive history of an underappreciated president—and to give an intimate view on how the presidency works.
-
-
Book Like Administration: Well-Meaning But Flawed
- By John David on 06-06-18
By: Stuart E. Eizenstat, and others
-
Collision 2012
- Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America
- By: Dan Balz
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Four years ago, a bright young presidential candidate named Barack Obama campaigned on a theme of hope and change, and made history. Today, he finds himself in another bitter, divisive presidential race but without the buzzwords. Instead, an embattled president struggles with a dysfunctionally divided Congress, a controversial healthcare bill, a decade-long war, and a stagnant economy.
-
-
Fascinating. Couldn't stop listening.
- By Gregory E Benoit on 07-24-16
By: Dan Balz
-
The New Reagan Revolution
- How Ronald Reagan’s Principles Can Restore America’s Greatness
- By: Michael Reagan, Jim Denney, Newt Gingrich
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The challenges and threats we as a nation face today are eerily similar to the conditions in the world before the beginning of the Reagan era. In his famous 1976 speech at the Republican National Convention, Ronald Reagan helped define a way forward and strengthened the Republican Party. As we stand at a crossroads once again, we are fortunate to have a blueprint for restoring America’s greatness. Reagan has given us the principles to succeed.
-
-
Why America is Exceptional
- By John on 09-03-12
By: Michael Reagan, and others
-
The Tea Party Goes to Washington
- By: Rand Paul
- Narrated by: Ric Reitz
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If the midterm elections were a declaration of war on the status quo, Rand Paul leads the battle charge. Voters fearful of growing government and debt have found voice in the Tea Party phenomenon, and the movement continues to deliver a message that Washington, D.C., has found impossible to ignore.
-
-
Loved this!
- By Kelly on 03-27-13
By: Rand Paul
-
Courage and Consequence
- My Life as a Conservative in the Fight
- By: Karl Rove
- Narrated by: Karl Rove
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the moment he set foot on it, Karl Rove has rocked Americas political stage. He ran the national College Republicans at 22, and turned a Texas dominated by Democrats into a bastion for Republicans. He launched George W. Bush to national renown by unseating a popular Democratic governor, and then orchestrated a GOP White House win at a time when voters had little reason to throw out the incumbent party.
-
-
Thank you Mr Rove!
- By J. Collette on 03-15-10
By: Karl Rove
-
Act of Congress
- How America's Essential Institution Works, and How It Doesn't
- By: Robert G. Kaiser
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An eye-opening account of how Congress today really works - and doesn’t - that follows the dramatic journey of the sweeping financial reform bill enacted in response to the Great Crash of 2008. The founding fathers expected Congress to be the most important branch of government and gave it the most power. When Congress is broken - as its justifiably dismal approval ratings suggest - so is our democracy.
-
-
insightful, and eye opening.
- By A&K Schneider on 10-21-17
By: Robert G. Kaiser
Critic reviews
"Jack Kemp was the most forward-looking, open-hearted, big-tented Republican of our time (save, perhaps, Ronald Reagan). In this beautifully written biography, Morton Kondracke and Fred Barnes capture the energy, optimism, intellectual fire, and social conscience of this fascinating man." (Charles Krauthammer, author of Things That Matter)
"Jack Kemp was my mentor, and he inspired a whole generation of conservatives to think big. In this book, Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes write with the same infectious energy that Jack had. Jack taught Republicans to speak to people’s aspirations, and this is the story of how he did it. Anyone who wants to spark an ‘American Renaissance’ should read this book." (Rep. Paul Ryan [R-WI])
"I’ve long admired what Jack Kemp represented as an American statesman: the idea that reasonable people can come together, in spite of their differences, to advance policies that make America better. I was deeply touched by Jack’s personal interest in my own work, and I consider him a friend and a teacher. I hope more people are able to learn the lessons he helped teach me." (Senator Cory Booker [D-NJ])