Transterrestrial Musings

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Gary Hartpence? With all due respect, Rand, I think you and Glenn must be smoking something.

First, Gary Hart couldn't even beat Walter Mondale.

Second, two words: Donna Rice.

Posted by Mark R. Whittington at January 21, 2003 09:26 PM

Donna who? I have seen many articles in the national press talking about Gary Hart, and none of them mention this old news. I think that Clinton set a new standard.

Posted by Michael Conti at January 21, 2003 09:35 PM

Donna Rice? I don't think so. The country is very different than it was the last time Hart ran for president.

Look at Rob Lowe: his sex scandal pretty much destroyed his career. Now look at Hugh Grant.Now look at Bill Clinton. QED.

Sometime in the last fifteen years the mainstream of public opinion in this country stopped caring about sexual peccadilloes short of rape (the phenomenon is not limited to the US- look at how much Major's reputation improved in Britain after it was revealed he had had an affair). This is particularly true of the Democratic Party's base, and most swing voters.

I find it very hard to believe that many voters who would have otherwise voted for Hart would be dissuaded by a fling he had almost twenty years ago.

Posted by Tagore Smith at January 21, 2003 09:45 PM

Gary Hart being the best the Democrats have to offer isn't far fetched. After all, the same party turned to his contemporaries-- Frank Lautenberg and Walter Mondale to win races they were about to lose, and if they hadn't had that stupid "memorial service", we'd have a evenly split Senate right now.

But you can't keep runing on the dinosaurs forever. (Even though I expect Mass. to give the Senate's Designated Driver the opporunity to break Thurmond's records.) The problem is the Demos either haven't got, or don't trust, their "Next Generation."

Posted by Raoul Ortega at January 21, 2003 09:48 PM

Yes, if Gary Hart gets the nomination (unlikely, in my opinion, thankfully), Donna Rice won't be an issue. It's truly old, and in this jaded, post-Clinton America, irrelevant news.

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 21, 2003 10:05 PM

A Senate race is one thing, the Presidency something else altogether. Reaching for an 80s relic will smell like weakness to the public, and the perception of being weak will mitigate against a Presidential candidate in these times.

Posted by FeloniousPunk at January 21, 2003 10:05 PM

The problem with security is government employees and bureaucrats who block anything that is non-PC.
All this fuss over TIA is a perfect example of a good idea that will be beat to death by false characterizations before it can even be tested.

Hart would have to coddle Democrats, and he'd be about as effective at effecting change as Bill Clinton was at passing a national health care plan.

Posted by AST at January 21, 2003 10:07 PM

Hart probably would make the best candidate, unless someone turns up another incident that's happened since the Donna Rice affair (that in itself won't make much of a difference, since it's been out in public for so long). But Hart's main problem will be the baggage the Democratic Party will bring to him, especailly if the Clintonites within the upper echilons of the party are reluctant to give up control (a weaker Bush over the next 18 months combined with a successful Hart run for the party's nomination would definitely make the Hillary! contigent within the party massively uneasy). He'll also have to deal with the party's anti-war left wing, which certainly will want a voice in any foreign policy platform that comes out of the Boston convention (presidental nominees often ignore their party's platforms, but obviously military affairs will be a bigger factor in the 2004 election than in any election since at least 1988).

Posted by John at January 21, 2003 10:08 PM

Hart? Please, demos, nominate him. I don't think he's a bad guy, but neither am I. I don't think I should be President either. Bush has balls and sees the world as it is, not as he wishes it to be.

Posted by tim at January 21, 2003 10:28 PM

I think that those of you who dismiss the idea of Donna Rice as an issue are missing the point. It's true that sexual misconduct (and that included rape, by the way) was not enough to sink Clinton. But Clinton also has very strong political skills, albeit used primarily to get himself out of trouble he caused for himself. Those scandals were enough to sink Al Gore, who should have won 2000 in a route, and he has been, if nothing else, a sober family man. Gary Hart's problem is that Donna Rice is all most people probably remember about him. I doubt that Democratic voters are going to take the risk.

Besides, what is he going to get the money to run?

Posted by Mark R. Whittington at January 21, 2003 10:32 PM

We've been following Hart for several months now--we like him more and more. Here's a link to the speech he gave Tuesday at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. It's long, but it shows how smart and knowledgeable he is--and he has a plan that makes far more sense than that of Bush and Rumsfeld.

Text of Gary Harts Speech

Posted by TalkLeft at January 21, 2003 10:55 PM

The next election is Bush's to lose. Hart is more credible in many respects than the others, but expect for those of us north of 40, he's bound to make ??? appear over people's heads. He has also been on the side lines a long time, which doesn't look good. If we beat Iraq in no time like many suspect, and the weak economy perks up, Dems will have no chance of winning. Period.

If, as some believe, there are huge repurcusions of us taking on Saddam, then the public may blame Bush. But again, the guy has played most things pretty smart and has danced around his foes.

I'd much rather see Hart as the alternative than most of the others. They're all a joke. I can see Hart getting one of them to be his running mate if he had the nomination, like maybe Edwards or Lieberman. But the Democratic party is such a mess, I think they will practically insure the failure of whomever they end up backing. And if there are any other wars in the offing, there will probably be another Green candidate to split the vote again.

Posted by James Hudnall at January 21, 2003 11:30 PM

Donna Rice is an issue, for some people. But the people for whom it is a valid issue would be the ones never likely to vote for Hart anyway. Bringing her up as an issue will most likely redound to Hart's credit. In fact I would say that Donna Rice might be a plus for Hart, because I'm sure he will play the injured party well, and the urge to use her by his opponents for a cheap couple of points at some time in the campaign will be too great to forego. Even if the points are not personally scored by Bush in some talk to a conservative action group the Hart campaign should be capable of playing it up.

Posted by Bryan at January 22, 2003 12:29 AM

Sorry, his speech is full of BS.

Same old anti-American BS in a slightly less offensive package, it's still full of lies.

Poverty (or Hart's " swamp of despair" does not breed terrorism, as Hart claims. How many of the 9/11 hijackers were poor? None. Most, if not all were richer than me.

How many Palestinian terrorists are poor? Damned few. Most are the more educated members of their society.

Posted by Jeremy at January 22, 2003 01:40 AM

Jeez, they might as well run Dukakis again.

Posted by Mumblix Grumph at January 22, 2003 02:26 AM

Jeremy is absolutely correct. There is no more beef in Hart's speech than there was when he ran against Mondale. Anybody with even half a brain could knock his liberal pap ideas into the next time zone. His "solution" is to give the third world all our money and hope they don't hurt us anymore. Hart is a girl. He even asks the archiliberal question, "why do they hate us?" Who gives a sh*t why. War is its own reason. Fight and win first, ask questions later. There is nothing new about terrorism and we know who the enemy is. The only thing new here is that American presidents no longer have the balls to defend our country. Bin laden could have been captured with one phone call, and all terrorism could be stopped in one day if we had the will. But that is the one thing we DON'T have. So the future is going to be, shall we say, interesting.

Posted by at January 22, 2003 04:07 AM

Rand,

I don't think so.

Please see my latest on North Korea over on Winds of Change.

"North Korea?s Tony Sopranos"

http://www.windsofchange.net/2003_01_19_woc.html#87836425

Bush is not his father, and we will still have the Saudis and Pakistanis to deal with after the Axis of Evil.

As long as there is war in the offing, no Democrat wll be elected President without a major economic depression.

It is more likely that Bush will be replaced by MCCain in the Republican primaries, if Bush screws up the war, than it is for Gary Hart o replace Bush in a general election.

Posted by Trent Telenko at January 22, 2003 05:53 AM

Rand,

I don't think so.

Please see my latest on North Korea over on Winds of Change.

"North Korea?s Tony Sopranos"

http://www.windsofchange.net/2003_01_19_woc.html#87836425

Bush is not his father, and we will still have the Saudis and Pakistanis to deal with after the Axis of Evil.

As long as there is war in the offing, no Democrat will be elected President without a major economic depression.

It is more likely that Bush will be replaced by MCCain in the Republican primaries, if Bush screws up the war, than it is for Gary Hart o replace Bush in a general election.

Posted by Trent Telenko at January 22, 2003 05:53 AM

I just read Gary Hart’s speech and was only somewhat impressed. I agree he would make a formidable candidate, and disagree that the Dems would be too stupid to nominate him. The winner of the Democratic primary will be the person who the Dems believe is the most likely to beat Bush.

All of that said, I agree that the election is Bush’s to lose and the Hart speech reveals a lot of weaknesses. By someone with a little political skill (and Karl Rove has more than a little) it will be easy to spin this as blaming America, and thus vaguely anti-American.

The single dumbest thing in the speech (from a pure-politics point of view) is a long-winded paragraph talking in highly theoretical language about just what those detainees at Guantanamo “are”. Most Americans know exactly what they are – contemptible islamo-fascists deserving of no sympathy who need to be locked up, charges or no charges, until we are certain they aren’t a threat or until they rot. Anyone who says otherwise is gambling with the average American’s attention span.

Which brings me to my next point. The speech is highly theoretical and “intellectual” throughout (even in a speech this long one should never use any form of the word “paradox” more than once – he does it three times.) It is long on rhetoric and short on actual policy. That is probably wise this early in the game, but given the middle road he is trying to take, I think he is going to take a beating from the likes of Tim Russert demanding to know, “EXACTLY what would you do different?”

He will clearly be strongest on Homeland Security where he has some credentials, and the eloquence to sell it. “America will prevail in this new age more because of the strength of its citizens than the power of its arsenal” – that’s gold. Bush needs to adopt Clinton’s strategy and steal it.

He will actually be weakest on foreign policy itself. “War is not an instrument of policy; it is a failure of policy.” That makes for a good sound-bite, but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, and a skilled debater will knock it out of the park – our enemies brought this war to us, we did not seek it.

Assuming no economic downturn and no major terrorist attacks, Bush will be very hard to beat. The bursting of the equity bubble, combined with 9/11, should have thrown our country into one hell of a recession. The fact that it didn’t speaks volumes about the resiliency of the U.S. economy. Bush will take credit for this and it will put the Dems on the defensive. If there are no major terrorist attacks Bush will rightfully get a lot of credit. Criticism of his Homeland Security, no matter how good it sounds, will come off as pretty lame.

Posted by Mike Plaiss at January 22, 2003 07:09 AM

Hart will face the same problems that Lieberman faced. To be vetted past the party faithful, who get out the vote, he'll be required to publicly repudiate any sensible position he has held.

The Hart that would get the nod would not be the same one running now.

Bob

Posted by Bob at January 22, 2003 07:18 AM

I didn't read the speech--my comment was made only on the interview by H&C. I didn't mean to imply that anyone is likely to beat Bush in '04--just that Hart would have the best shot. He simply struck me as sincere, mature, and not unlikeable, which is something that I can say for few, if any, other Democratic candidates.

And in fact, I think that as long as he's kept his nose clean since, the Donna Rice thing would generate more sympathy than antipathy for him, if it was viewed as rehashing the "politics of personal destruction," over an issue almost two decades old. Particularly since she's since turned over a new leaf, and could play victim as well.

It would be a big mistake for the Republicans to attempt to make it an issue if he runs. And I think that Rove's smart enough to know that.

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 22, 2003 08:11 AM

Simberg wrote, "Yes, if Gary Hart gets the nomination (unlikely, in my opinion, thankfully), Donna Rice won't be an issue. It's truly old, and in this jaded, post-Clinton America, irrelevant news."

Absolutely wrong, Rand. The Donna Rice story goes right to the heart of who Gary Hart really is, what he's about, and what a Hart presidency would be like.

The Donna Rice affair proved Hart lacks self-discipline---he was running for president; couldn't he keep his pants zipped for a few months?---and, more critically, that he is the sort of guy who likes to see how far he can press his luck and what he can get away with. In other words, he likes to take big, foolish risks for low potential reward.

Don't forget that Hart dared reporters to follow him around to see if he was carrying on an affair. The very next weekend, he meets with Rice at his house in Washington and was surprised---surprised and irritated!!---to discover reporters had been staking out his house and following the movements of him and Rice.

Think about that for a second---he dares reporters to catch him in an affair, and the very next weekend he invites his mistress to spend the weekend at his house in Washington. How disconnected from reality does a guy have to be to not realize the press would take him up on his dare and that it would be best to lay low for a few weeks??

Like the Monica Lewinsky affair, the Donna Rice affair was less about sex than it was about judgment, self-control, honesty, and being able to fully understand the possible consequences of certain actions. All that falls under the category of "character," a concept the faux sophisticates like to avoid but one that still matters in the real world. (The comparisons to Rob Lowe and Hugh Grant "rehabilitations" stray into idiotarian territory; we're talking about the Presidency, not casting a movie!)

Hart is merely a Bill Clinton without the personal charm and political instincts, and a Hart presidency would be just an even more dysfunctional and feckless version of the Clinton administration.

Posted by Harry at January 22, 2003 08:17 AM

I am quite familiar with the history, and it appropriately knocked him out of the race at the time.

But even I, who don't support him politically, would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt twenty years on, on the assumption that he learned from the experience, and is older and wiser now.

Bill Clinton has a deep character flaw, and he has been demonstrated over decades to be an irredeemable sociopath. It's not at all clear that that's the case with Hart. If he did the same thing recently, and were shown to be a serial offender over a long period of time, then you'd be right, but my sense of it is that he truly did learn from the mistake, and probably (unlike Clinton) had to change to preserve his marriage.

I suspect that most people (particularly those open to voting for Democrats) will view it as I do.

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 22, 2003 08:51 AM

This point has already been made a few times in a general sense but Gary Hart will face the same problems in 04' that any Dem would. How do you present the American public with a realistic plan to defeat terrorism and protect national security when a solid core of the Democratic base (I'd guess 30-40% you might call them the "Wellstone Wing") will oppose almost any proposed military action in the war and won't support the concept of a strong military to protect the country? If Hart or someone like Bob Graham tries to run as a "strong on defense" Democrat it will almost surely cause the party to splinter and as was commented upon earlier lead to a third party candidate, most likely Green, taking away even a larger share of the Democratic vote. Unless the war and the economy both go terribly wrong for Bush I don't see how he can lose.

Posted by the elder at January 22, 2003 09:22 AM

Ummmm, no. Gary Hart would be to 2004 what Bob Dole was to 1996 -- without the scandal-plagued incumbent to make him look, however briefly, like he has a shot.

Posted by Kevin McGehee at January 22, 2003 10:12 AM

At least Donna Rice was a major babe. I think Clinton might have had an easier time if his girl had been better looking. Monica was sort of an embarrassment. Like finding your big brother had been dating someone just not up to his big man on campus status.

And didn't I see Donna Rice's name linked recently with some public service type effort?

DONNA RICE FOR PRESIDENT.

Posted by Ian Collins at January 23, 2003 11:50 AM

Lame nerdy guys support Gary Hart...
If they hang close enough they think they
might get close to some cool chicks

Posted by ann at January 23, 2003 05:22 PM

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