At the Washington Cathedral memorial service for conservative icon Jack Kemp last May, many of his loyalists asked the same question: with Kemp’s passing, would his infectious pro-growth optimism also depart our political stage? That profoundly sad day, it certainly seemed possible.

Just eight months later, there is a remarkable potential candidate in the Kemp mold who may oppose – and defeat – uber liberal Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). New York Republican, Conservative and Tea Party leaders are talking up the potential candidacy of CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow, a former advisor to Kemp and Ronald Reagan.

For decades, Chuck Schumer has bullied his way to victory at the polls. He’s a prodigious fundraiser, a tough campaigner, and has long been thought unbeatable. But as former New York Assembly Republican leader John Faso noted recently in the New York Post, Schumer’s “image of invincibility has been fed by the failure of Republicans in New York and Washington to aggressively attack his vulnerabilities.”

Many New Yorkers agree: it is difficult to find a federal legislator as odious as Schumer. He is personally responsible for much of the bad policy that led to the economic melt down of the United States. He stands firmly in favor of health care reform that is bad for New Yorkers and he supports a tax on banks that is poison for the Empire State.

And when the Obama administration announced plans to make Manhattan a terrorist target again by trying al Qaeda terrorists in the city – at a cost of hundreds of millions of tax dollars – we didn’t hear a peep of complaint out of our Senator until after the White House shifted its position.

Just one year ago, Schumer took to the Senate floor to explain his affection for pork barrel spending. “Let me say this to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little tiny, yes, porky amendments,” he lectured. “The American people really don’t care.”

In minutes, his tone-deaf commentary was featured on YouTube. Fully ten percent of 270,000 video viewers left colorful comments disagreeing with the Senior Senator from New York – an extraordinary rate of reply for the Web site. Ten days later, CNBC’s Rick Santelli set off another Reagan Revolution by calling for “a Tea Party in Chicago.” Schumer’s hubris helped.

Just in time for the Holidays last year, voters in New York were regaled with another story of Schumer’s antics. Told to shut down his cell phone on a US Airways shuttle from New York to Washington, New York’s senior Senator instead called a flight attendant a foul name. Even after he said the phone was off, it rang again.

“It’s Harry Reid calling,” Schumer said loudly. “I guess health care will have to wait until we land.” Perhaps thanks to that flight attendant, Schumer’s health care public option may never take off.

Today, Schumer has turned his guns on his own ranks, pretending only he may decide who among Democrats can and cannot run against his hand puppet, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Meanwhile, he’s conniving to replace Sen. Harry Reid as the leading Senate Democrat.

Until Scott Brown was elected to the Senate in loopy liberal Massachusetts, nobody thought it ever possible to rid New York of the self-serving, mean-spirited, virulently partisan liberal. Now the game has changed. Enter Larry Kudlow.

A graduate of the University of Rochester, Kudlow also worked for New York’s legendary Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. A chief architect of the Reagan era tax-cuts that sparked one of the greatest economic booms in modern times, Kudlow is recognized as a leading anti-tax supply side economist. He holds Jack Kemp out as his mentor and is one of the few people in politics today determined to carry the Buffalo Congressman’s legacy forward.

Kudlow has run a business, met a payroll and toiled for decades in the corporate, policy and media arenas. He’s also endured the alembic of personal crisis and come out tempered with character and humility. In contrast, Schumer has been in politics all his adult life and, after countless mean-spirited public episodes, his character is in question.

Kudlow is also a thoughtful, well-spoken and original analyst and one of the most effective debaters on the Right. This capacity is vital against Schumer, who is vicious and smart on the stump.

Importantly, Kudlow may raise just as much money from his stellar contacts as Schumer does from his own. Insiders say he may even beat the longtime legislator among Wall Street donors, who are quietly but completely tired of Schumer’s shakedowns.

On the one-year anniversary of Schumer’s snotty miscalculation of Americans’ appetite for pork, Larry Kudlow is seriously considering a bid for his seat. Kemp fans are especially intrigued and in just three weeks more than 15,000 Americans enthusiastic about his potential candidacy have signed up here.

This election year, Chuck Schumer may meet his own Scott Brown, even his own Jack Kemp. And nobody deserves it more.