Last edited Tue Jun 9, 2015, 09:49 AM - Edit history (1)
http://time.com/3848055/martin-omalley-gary-hart/
“It’s almost like ghosts from the past, people who never gave up believing they could make a difference in the country, are coming back to support Martin,” said Wilson, who went on to serve as the senior Pentagon spokesman during President Obama’s first term.
Like Hart in 1984, O’Malley faces a long and unlikely path to the Democratic nomination. Despite his frequent appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire and long tenure in Maryland politics, he lacks a national profile and barely registers in most polls. If he runs, he’ll face Hillary Clinton, who has the broad support of the Democratic establishment, and Bernie Sanders, an underdog candidate who nonetheless has a strong claim on the progressive wing of the party.
But supporters say that O’Malley’s campaign could quickly take hold in Iowa or New Hampshire, where restive caucus-goers are looking for a contested race. The model for a surge against Hillary Clinton? Hart’s surprise 1984 campaign against Mondale, when the virtually unknown senator from Colorado nearly took the nomination from the establishment-backed candidate.
and this from April 23, Wapo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/04/23/gary-hart-says-he-would-support-a-martin-omalley-presidential-bid/
O’Malley cut his teeth in politics working in Iowa for Hart’s campaign in advance of the 1984 caucuses. Much like O’Malley, Hart was barely registering in the polls in the early stages of a race in which he was pitted against a formidable frontrunner: Walter Mondale, the former vice president.
After a better-than-expected second place finish in Iowa, Hart went on to win the New Hampshire primary and became the chief rival to Mondale for the Democratic nomination, eventually falling short. (A second Hart presidential bid in 1988 was undermined by scandal.)
Hart said he “absolutely” sees a path to the nomination for O’Malley, though he allowed that at this stage, it appears “very unlikely.”
I want to say something about Hart and his support. For anyone who decides to negate his support because of *scandals* they should
read this article in its entirety. Perhaps most salient, though, the nation’s news media were changing in profound ways. When giants like White came up through the news business in the postwar years, the surest path to success was to gain the trust of politicians and infiltrate their world. Proximity to power and the information and insight derived from having it was the currency of the trade. By the 1980s, however, Watergate and television had combined to awaken an entirely new kind of career ambition. If you were an aspiring journalist born in the 1950s, when the baby boom was in full swing, then you entered the business at almost exactly the moment when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post — portrayed by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in the cinematic version of their first book, “All the President’s Men” — were becoming not just the most celebrated reporters of their day but very likely the wealthiest and most famous journalists in American history (with the possible exception of Walter Cronkite). And what made Woodward and Bernstein so iconic wasn’t proximity, but scandal. They had actually managed to take down a mendacious American president, and in doing so they came to symbolize the hope and heroism of a new generation.
It would be hard to overstate the impact this had, especially on younger reporters. If you were one of the new breed of middle-class, Ivy League-educated baby boomers who had decided to change the world through journalism, then there was simply no one you could want to become more than Woodward or Bernstein, which is to say, there was no greater calling than to expose the lies of a politician, no matter how inconsequential those lies might turn out to be or in how dark a place they might be lurking.
I welcome his support of Martin O'Malley. I believe in redemption and I also believe that private life is important. This is a man who could have been President had he not become a victim of his own foibles but more importantly, the press. Gary Hart existed long before the Bill Clinton *scandals* and was the very first victim of a rabid press. (once again, read the entire article, Gary Hart Derangement Syndrome existed before Clinton Derangement Syndrome.)
I don't excuse what may have happened, but as I told many friends at the time regarding Bill Clinton: it was never a matter of national security. The thing is: it was the very first invasion of privacy that led to a republican (GHW Bush) getting elected. Hart was a STRONG candidate.
You can read about it here. (Editing to add the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Hart )
In late April, 1987, an anonymous informant contacted The Miami Herald and told the paper that Hart was having an affair, provided details about the affair, and told the Herald that Hart was going to meet his lover at his Washington DC townhouse the next Friday, May 1. As a result, a team of Herald reporters staked out the townhouse that evening and the next Saturday, and observed a young woman and Gary Hart together. The Herald reporters confronted Hart on Saturday evening in an alley; he denied that he was having an affair.
The Herald published a story on May 3 that Hart had spent Friday night and most of Saturday with a young woman whom he had invited to stay with him. On that same day, in an interview that appeared in the New York Times, Hart, responding to the rumors of his womanizing: was quoted: "Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'll be very bored." The Herald's reporters knew that the New York Times was going to feature the story with the quote on Sunday, and the two articles appearing on the same day ignited a political firestorm. On Sunday, Hart's campaign denied any scandal and condemned the Herald's reporters for their intrusive reporting.
The next day, Monday, the young woman was identified as Donna Rice, and she gave a press conference also denying an affair.
The scandal spread rapidly through the national media, as did another damaging story about angry creditors of the $1.3 million in debt Hart had incurred in prior campaigns. Questions about the affair came to dominate Hart's campaign appearances.
I wanted to put that out there as I suspect people will try to slam O'Malley for having loyal and good friends who also would have been amazing had the media not taken them down because they simply could.
In this day and age, FDR would
NEVER have been elected.
I am old enough to remember all of this, and I am old enough to remember that politics and the media was forever changed from 1998 forward. It's a shame.
Gary Hart was a far better candidate than Dukakis. Donna Rice never admitted to anything and we lost a fine candidate for president.
As I said, I welcome his support. O'Malley supported his ideas and his platform; O'Malley has only grown as a result of it.
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