Kemp declares candidacy

Press, 8 April 1987, Page 11

Kemp declares candidacy

NZPA-Reuter Washington Congressman Jack Kemp, a former profes-. sional football star, announced his candidacy for the Republican Party’s 1988 presidential nomination yesterday with a pledge to promote economic growth, defend freedom and protect family values. Mr Kemp, now in his seventeenth year in Congress, compared the United States to a “good shepherd” that “must reach out to the weak and V those who have fallen be- L hind” both at home and >

abroad. “Too many are left behind and there’s too much despair,” Mr Kemp said. But he added that “there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed.” The so-called "handsome, photogenic politician” has overcome an image as an intellectual lightweight to become a leading conservative spokesman and a top Republican economic theorist Mr Kemp, aged 51, joins a former Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, and former Delaware

Governor, Pierre du Pont, as the only Republicans officially in the 1988 presidential race. Vice-President George Bush, the Senate Republican leader, Robert Dole, and a television evangelist, Pat Robertson, are expected to announce their candidacies later this year. A former Nevada Senator, Paul Laxalt, is also weighing a presidential bid. A Missouri Congressman, Richard Gephardt, and former Arizona Governor, Bruce Babbitt, have officially entered the Democratic Party race. '