How Gary Hart’s Downfall Forever Changed American Politics

[Seshmeister]

A long article so easier to read the full one at their site rather than here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/magazine/how-gary-harts-downfall-forever-changed-american-politics.html?_r=0

Without Hart being photographed with a woman sitting on his knee you don't have Bush Snr, Clinton, Bush Jnr or Obama...


I asked Hart what it was he might have to feel guilty about. It seemed we were veering close to the boundary beyond which he had always refused to travel.

“I don’t feel guilty,” he said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with salving my conscience.”

“No, I don’t mean your conscience,” Lee said.

I asked Lee what she had meant to say.

“Gary feels guilty,” Lee said finally. “Because he feels like he could have been a very good president.”

“I wouldn’t call it guilt,” Hart said.

“No. Well.”

“It’s not guilt, babe,” he protested. “It’s a sense of obligation.”

“Yeah, O.K.,” Lee said, sounding relieved. “That’s better. Perfect.”

“You don’t have to be president to care about what you care about,” Hart said.

“It’s what he could have done for this country that I think bothers him to this very day,” Lee said.

“Well, at the very least, George W. Bush wouldn’t have been president,” Hart said ruefully. This sounded a little narcissistic, but it was, in fact, a hard premise to refute. Had Hart bested George H. W. Bush in 1988, as he was well on his way to doing, it’s difficult to imagine that Bush’s aimless eldest son would have somehow ascended from nowhere to become governor of Texas and then president within 12 years’ time.

“And we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq,” Hart went on. “And a lot of people would be alive who are dead.” A brief silence surrounded us. Hart sighed loudly, as if literally deflating. “You have to live with that, you know?”

[twonabomber]

That's like saying if Dubya got the MLB commissioner gig that he wouldn't be president.

[FORD]

When Donna Rice suddenly turned up as a religious reich anti-porn crusader, I suspected she might well have been a BCE plant from day one. Not that Hart doesn't deserve some blame for being dumb enough to fall for it, of course. But yeah, I think he was setup, because Poppy knew he wouldn't actually beat him in an election.

Unlike that pathetic candidate Dukakis. Who I voted for, but not exactly with any enthusiasm.

[Nickdfresh]

That's like saying if Dubya got the MLB commissioner gig that he wouldn't be president.

But the MLB would have suffered 30% casualties, been vastly over-budget, and fragmented... :)

[cadaverdog]

When Donna Rice suddenly turned up as a religious reich anti-porn crusader, I suspected she might well have been a BCE plant from day one.
I bet you did. Who isn't?

[kwame k]

Weems comes off as the most self absorbed and just plain jealous of Rice, hell hath no furry, kinda chick!

The Herald comes off as a Keystone Cops version of Woodward and Bernstein!

All in all a pretty good article about those events and a pretty valid premise about that being a defining moment in the shift to tabloid journalism. I personally think the advent of 24 hour news stations did more for focusing on nonsense issues to fill time than any sex scandal of the print era did.

Hart really was in the wrong place at the wrong time politically speaking.........it's like winning a professional sporting championship, there's an element of luck to it.

Unless you're a Kennedy, Bush or a few others who have bought/swindled their way into the presidency ;)

[Nitro Express]

When Donna Rice suddenly turned up as a religious reich anti-porn crusader, I suspected she might well have been a BCE plant from day one. Not that Hart doesn't deserve some blame for being dumb enough to fall for it, of course. But yeah, I think he was setup, because Poppy knew he wouldn't actually beat him in an election.

Unlike that pathetic candidate Dukakis. Who I voted for, but not exactly with any enthusiasm.

I remember Dukakis. I was not a fan of HW Bush and I was even a member of the Young Republicans at the time. I asked someone from Massachusetts what they thought of Dukakis and they said,"Well Dukakis thinks he's a greek god but he's just a god damned greek." I took it that Dukakis was a bit egoed out and fond of himself.

[Nitro Express]

I read today that Jebb Bush is probably going to run in 2016. That cocksucker was making the rounds when Common Core was being pushed and sold to state governments. The right wingers around here hate Common Core and think it's an Obama thing. Well it's more of a Bush thing and hey Obama is more of the Bush thing that people imagined. I'm sure Barry doesn't get in the way of Carlyle Group business. He sure looked happy when daddy Bush paid the White House a visit.

Folks. We all have been taken for a ride. It needs to end. No Jebb. No Romney and no Democrat Bush puppet.

[FORD]

Sanders/Warren 2016!

[Terry]

When Donna Rice suddenly turned up as a religious reich anti-porn crusader, I suspected she might well have been a BCE plant from day one. Not that Hart doesn't deserve some blame for being dumb enough to fall for it, of course. But yeah, I think he was setup, because Poppy knew he wouldn't actually beat him in an election.

Unlike that pathetic candidate Dukakis. Who I voted for, but not exactly with any enthusiasm.

Yeah, but the article points out that Hart's philandering wasn't restricted to Donna Rice. Gary Hart was (and remains) a smart, thoughtful man, but it was as if back then he hadn't fully realized the nature of the change that had taken place by the late 1980s in how the press covered politics and politicians since he was first elected to the Senate in the mid 1970s. Way back then, a politician's personal life was, by and large, considered off-limits to the mainstream media. An unspoken agreement between reporters and candidates. Hart, better than anybody (or at least as much as anybody) should have realized with the Church Committee revelations (a committee he was on) about Judith Exner and JFK how the focus had shifted.

Even if Rice HAD been a plant, Hart was culpable for rising to the bait. Should it have mattered if Hart was straying from his wife? I'm still vacillating about that in a general sense.

Dukakis ended up being a pathetic candidate. I mean, shit, the guy was leading Bush in the early summer by 20 + percentage points in the polls. Dukakis and the democratic party were totally unequipped for the GOP strategy of turning the election into a bullshit referendum on meaningless issues like flag-burning and Willie Horton. Shit, Bush was lucky to have even gotten the NOMINATION to begin with.

It's amazing how his role in Iran-Contra evaporated as a central campaign issue over the course of 1987 and early 1988, to the point where it wasn't even being talked about by the time Nov 1988 rolled around.