SUN CITY - After Republican vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp left the stage at the Lakes Club of Sun City yesterday, his wife, Joanne, and their youngest son, Jimmy, stayed to discuss issues ranging from education to crime.

Joanne and Jimmy Kemp spoke with the Arizona Daily Wildcat and The Arizona Republic, a Phoenix newspaper, following Jack Kemp's forum attended by about 300 people.

The conversation with Joanne Kemp began with the issue of education and the question of what Jack Kemp and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole proposed to do with the current educational system, including educational loans.

Joanne Kemp said Dole and Jack Kemp would work to expand Pell grants.

"Senator Dole believes that financial aid should be available to anyone who needs it," Joanne Kemp said.

She also discussed other scholarships and grants that would be available under a Dole administration.

She said "opportunity scholarships" of $1,000 for elementary school and $1,500 for high school students would be available to financially needy families.

Joanne and Jimmy Kemp said that under a Dole administration, the federal Department of Education would be eliminated. The nearly 20-year-old department has done nothing to improve the educational system, instead, it has created bureaucracy, they said.

"Senator Dole wants to put educational control back in the hands of the state, the way it had been until the Carter administration," Joanne Kemp said.

There are no easy answers to the problems facing the education system, she said, and then moved on to the topic of crime.

"Bob Dole would appoint judges that are tough on crime and that would understand that the problem is the criminals and not victims," Joanne Kemp said.

She said to solve the problem of crime, one would need to start with the primary issues that cause crime. She attributed crime to low economic status and the lack of incentives for people to stay away from crime if they see a chance to profit from it.

"Welfare and drugs cause crime," Joanne Kemp said.

Joanne and Jimmy Kemp said that with Dole as president, there would be changes, as opposed to what they said was a lack of changes under President Clinton's administration.

"Economic opportunity would increase under Senator Dole's plan and we feel that would help reduce crime," Joanne Kemp said.

When asked about the Republican attempt to persuade Reform Party presidential candidate Ross Perot to drop out of the race and support Dole, Joanne Kemp said she had no information about that issue. She said, however, that the Republican Party may have do ne this because they see the Reform Party and the Republican Party working toward similar goals, such as trying to make drastic reforms to government.

Finally, Joanne Kemp talked about what is most talked about in this campaign - President Clinton's double-digit lead in the polls.

"People make up their own minds; the reported polls don't make the decisions for them," she said. "The final poll, and the only one that really counts, will be on Nov. 5, Election Day."

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