IN THE AFTERMATH of Iowa and New Hampshire, conservatives ask: Why did Jack Kemp fail to become the undisputed champion of the Cause? He was right on the issues. Right on foreign policy—support for the Contras, skepticism about the INF treaty, the imperative for SDL Right on domestic issues—abortion, prayer in schools, Reaganomics, et al. Yet he failed to ignite conservative fires.
The only conservative entitled to claim any degree of triumph is Pat Robertson, whose success thus far is best quantified by the number of Democrats he has led across the party line to vote in Republican contests. Robertson tapped into an unmined vein of conservatism, namely the social issues, which had been given short shrift by Ronald Reagan, despite his copious rhetoric.
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