For those who knew Ken Klinge, it was a sad irony that he died at age 83 on October 27—just six days before Republican Glenn Youngkin was elected governor of Virginia.
As one of those who took Virginia Republicans out of the proverbial phone booth and helped lead them to statewide office beginning in the 1980’s, John Kenneth Klinge was a true political par excellence who knew how to take issues and use them to mobilize voters.
“He ran my first race in 1979 for the Fairfax County Board [of Supervisors] and was lead consultant for my ‘91 [County Board] Chairman’s race and ‘94 House race,” former Rep. Tom Davis, R.-Va., recalled to Newsmax, “We beat Democratic incumbents both times. He mentored a generation of Republican candidates.”
And while Klinge was best remembered as a hard-nosed political operative, he was also a good-as-Goldwater conservative who felt strongly that the Republican Party and its candidates had to stand for substantive policy.
Born and raised in the northern Virginia suburbs outside Washington DC, Klinge was exposed to politics since infancy — and he loved all of it.
It was hard to recall when the young Klinge was not a full-time campaign worker for Republicans who were just starting to be competitive in Virginia in the 1960’s.
He helped Linwood Holton become Virginia’s first Republican governor in 1969. While Holton was far more moderate than Klinge, the young Republican strategist felt it was critical someone from his party finally capture the statehouse.
When Richmond attorney Richard Obenshain won the state Republican chairmanship in 1972, he tapped Klinge to be the party’s full-time executive director.
Under Obenshain and Klinge, conservative former Democratic Gov. Mills Godwin switched parties and, as a Republican, won back his old job in 1973. A record number of Republicans since the Civil War were also elected to the Virginia General Assembly.
In 1976, Klinge joined the insurgent campaign of Ronald Reagan against incumbent President Gerald Ford. As regional political director, he helped sculpt the strategy that kept Reagan’s candidacy alive with an upset victory in North Carolina following three successive primary defeats.
From there, utilizing the tactics he and Obenshain perfected in Virginia, Klinge helped steer the Reagan campaign to wooing conservative Democrats in the South. The former California governor swept all but a handful of delegates in South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Virginia, and just about every Southern state.
As it turned out, Ford eked out a win at the convention by 1,187 to 1070 for Reagan and narrowly lost the general election to Jimmy Carter. Reagan roared back in 1980 to an easy nomination and a big win over Carter — and the rest is history.
Klinge again served as regional political director in Reagan’s 1980 campaign and as director of special projects in the 1984 re-election effort.
He also demonstrated considerable acumen in the realm of transportation as special assistant and deputy assistant secretary under two U.S. secretaries of transportation in the Reagan Administration.
“The twin pinnacles of Kenny’s transportation work,” wrote Lynn Mitchell, editor of the Virginia conservative website "Bearing Drift," “were the modern expansion of Reagan National Airport while he served on the [Washington Metropolitan Airport] Authority’s Board of Directors and his successful efforts to expand Metro Rail outside of the Dulles Corridor during his tenure as Chair of the Dulles Corridor Task Force.”
As he approached an age when most of his contemporaries were planning retirement, Klinge was still quarterbacking campaigns.
“Get your two editors and meet me at the Irish Times [restaurant], Klinge “commanded” this reporter in October of 2007, “I’ll tell you how we’re going to win the 1st District convention next week.”
He was referring to the special GOP conclave called to select a nominee in Virginia’s 1st District to replace the late Republican Rep. JoAnn Davis. Klinge was running the campaign of conservative State Delegate Rob Wittman and Wittman’s support on the right was being drained by the long shot candidacy of former State Delegate Dick Black, a favorite of cultural conservatives.
“I told Black you lost your own seat two years ago, you don’t have a chance, and your killing your son-in-law’s chances in that state senate race by running yourself,” said Klinge.
A week later, Black was eliminated on the fourth ballot, Wittman won the nomination and serves in Congress today.
In his twilight years, Klinge lived with wife Jean in bucolic Basye, Virginia. He enjoyed golf, poker, and regaling visitors with old political tales.
“Kenny had a special knack for understanding grassroots local politics,” recalled Gary Hoitsma, who worked with Klinge in the Reagan campaigns and Department of Transportation, “Around 2011, we were chatting about the coming 2012 presidential race. Then he added an aside about the longer-term future. He told me he happened to be in attendance at a recent local Republican dinner in some backwater town in North Carolina. The speaker that night —apparently invited on a lark — was that flamboyant real estate tycoon from New York. Kenny said he was completely blown away, not by Trump — whom he didn’t much care for — but by the amazing over-the-top grassroots reaction to him. He said he hadn’t seen anything like it since Reagan. He told me, way before anyone else did: ‘Crazy as it seems, it might be wise to keep an eye on that guy.’”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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