WI: Gary Hart Doesn't Get Caught?

I just saw the trailer for Hugh Jackman's new movie "The Frontrunner." It tells of popular US Senator Gary Hart's rise and fall from grace as a presidential candidate in 1988. It got me thinking, what if Gary Hart's fling with Donna Rice hadn't been discovered by the press? Would he have won the Democratic nomination in 1988 and been elected President? How would world history change with a Democrat in the White House during the end of the Cold War? Would Hart's domestic policies have been a success?
 
Gary Hart had fund raising problems stemming from his 1984 campaign in which he was still heavily in debt from.
There were also questions about his work habits as one of the complaints about him in 1984 that he would slack off on the campaign trail and also be would not make the necessary fund raising calls.
 
Monkey Business or no Monkey Business, I have my doubts that any candidate who lost to Walter Mondale in 1984 on the strength of a slogan like "where's the beef?" https://www.c-span.org/video/?c3342979/mondale-hart-wheres-beef had much chance in 1988...

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He'd fare better than Dukakis for sure. If he played his cards right and the Bush campaign fumbles a bit, he could eek out a win, but it would be hard fought and I could see his work on the McGovern campaign being used against him by the Atwater smear machine.
 
He'd fare better than Dukakis for sure. If he played his cards right and the Bush campaign fumbles a bit, he could eek out a win, but it would be hard fought and I could see his work on the McGovern campaign being used against him by the Atwater smear machine.

I've also read that Hart tried to run an "above the fray" campaign focused on the issues. By focusing on the issues that matter to voters he'd do better than the Duke, but he'd almost certainly make the same mistake of ignoring Bush's attacks. He'd probably lose, at best he'd get around 236 electoral votes to Bush's 301. And Hart wouldn't be given a second chance in 1992 because like Dukakis he'll be perceived to have "blown it."

That said, Hart's failure to become President was the result of his own arrogance and recklessness. It was he who literally dared the media to follow him even as he was carrying on an affair and had a pre-established reputation as a womanizer. That's not the kind of person who should be given the nuclear codes, and there's no reason to think that President Hart wouldn't be taken down by a scandal. I've also read that in the 1980's when a female reporter went to interview him, Hart showed up in nothing more than a bathrobe and got angry when the reporter complained Hart was making her uncomfortable and told him to put clothes on. If that's true, that's outright harassment and if President Hart were to do that it could lead to a major scandal. And unlike the wily Clinton, Hart just might resign or be removed from office if it leads to impeachment.
 
Yeah, daring the media to follow you is dumb, especially when you're cheating on your wife!!!!

And the funny thing is, Hart had such a reputation for being smart. He had very forward thinking views on technology and terrorism, and after leaving politics he wrote many books and earned a doctorate in politics at Oxford. Maybe that reputation for outstanding intelligence made him arrogant, as it does for many people, and that arrogance did him in.
 
Wasn't the whole Monkey Business thing a setup by Lee Atwater?
It could be as easy as Hart smelling a trap and not taking the trip.
 
Wasn't the whole Monkey Business thing a setup by Lee Atwater?
It could be as easy as Hart smelling a trap and not taking the trip.

That was claimed recently in an article in The Atlantic, which says that before he died Atwater claimed to have done the following, "contriving an invitation from Broadhurst for Hart to come on a boat ride, when Hart intended to be working on a speech. Ensuring that young women would be invited aboard. Arranging for the Broadhurst boat Hart thought he would be boarding, with some unmemorable name, to be unavailable—so that the group would have to switch to another boat, Monkey Business. Persuading Broadhurst to 'forget' to check in with customs clearance at Bimini before closing time, so that the boat “unexpectedly” had to stay overnight there. And, according to Hart, organizing an opportunistic photo-grab."

This seems like a desperate attempt by a dying man to satiate his notoriously outsized ego. How exactly could Atwater have not only done all that but completely get away with it for 31 years? And unlike with Dukakis and other candidates Atwater actually did destroy, Atwater never apologized to Hart. Which seems strange since it was Hart who suffered the most humiliation. IMO, Hart did himself in and Atwater wasn't involved, though I'm sure he wished that he had been.

Here is the article I referenced: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/was-gary-hart-set-up/570802/
 
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Yeah, that Atwater story sounds like the tall tales the Dulles brothers would tell Ike about CIA operatives doing crazy stunts.
 
Gary Hart hates campaigning. It’s half the reason why he ran for the Presidency, he was sick of kowtowing to Colorado voters way too the right of him, with the other half being he really was (often) the smartest guy in the room despite his massive blind spots (sup a long tangled web of military reform, women). So he figured he should be President to deploy his ideas so his Senate colleagues and Reagan couldn’t stop him anymore. Think liberal Nixon without most of the bad parts, but also without Nixon’s willingness to makeover himself completely for 1968.

“Where’s the Beef” was hilariously effective and also completely wrong, as Hart had easily the content and policy ideas of Mondale.

So… did Hart have the best chance of any 1988 Dem to beat Bush? Yes. Easily. But he wasn’t a good campaigner. Bush wasn’t great, but he worked for it like he did in 1980 and hired the people that would get him to the Presidency whatever the cost.

Edit: the Dem base wants to fall in love with a young dude who loves being there in front of them: JFK, Clinton, Obama, Beto.
 
To some extent Gore ended up filling in the Hart role in 1988 - young, telegenic, potentially appealing in a general election etc.

Had Hart not imploded, then I suspect he'd have won the nomination, although one can see the debates in the general election screwing him over (as they did to Dukakis).
 
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