Word: kemp
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David Caprara, a challenger candidate for Virginia State Representative, is a former HUD operative and protege of Jack Kemp. He currently runs a business associated with Kemp's political mouthpiece, Empower America. Caprara lacks the charisma of a politician; he's a poor speaker and decidedly untelegenic. Yet he met with an outpouring of support--at least from the small community he got to know while he worked...
...Kemp's HUD agenda (and by extension, Caprara's) was complicated and multifaceted--it consisted of a lot of clean-up and a bit of innovation. His most visible legacy was the problematic "Empowerment Zones" program, which proposed tax breaks and other incentives for businesses that entered specially targeted low-income areas...
...campaign events are transparent efforts to draw attendees' pens to their checkbooks. But at this one, the tone was a bit more subdued. Kemp noted at one point that Caprara needed money. But he was well aware of this audience's financial capabilities, and emphasized that if Caprara supporters didn't have money to lend to the effort, it didn't matter. Their time and energy were even more valuable...
There's a nugget of truth to the rhetoric of empowerment. Its central theme is an effort to involve people in their communities. Kemp's HUD policies avoided completely imposing "assistance" upon disadvantage people. Instead, they aimed to encourage community members to feel connected to, and responsible for, solutions to their neighborhood dilemmas. "Empowerment" recast politics as a primarily local phenomenon...
...darling of progressive Republicans, Jack Kemp, also comes up short. While refreshingly different on some issues--notably race relations--his political program fails to address constructively the dangers of the debt. The literature of his political interest group, Empower America, does little more than rehash traditional Republican excuses for their part in the debt explosion...