May 14, 2007
Gary Hart VIII Posted by John Steele Gordon at 09:30 AM EST “Tomas” writes in the discussion section, “My point, exactly. Can any of you who are carrying on this discussion explain to me why, if Gary Hart’s error was in [not] knowing that media standards had changed, he was hounded out of his race for president even before it began by a media frenzy in 1987, and there is no such thing now about Giuliani, McCain and Gingrich? Even Clinton made it through the 1992 race relatively unscathed. By contrast, Gary Hart’s personal life has been relatively mild compared to the trio of leading GOP candidates now. Why the distinction? . . . I am curious as to what you think of the apparent contradiction. Have media standards changed back, or changed again, or just disappeared?” First, life isn’t fair, and the media most certainly isn’t. But I think the reason that Gary Hart found his private life politically fatal when it became public was in his explicit dare to the press, when the subject came up, to “follow me around. . . . They’ll be very bored.” Immediately after that less-than-wise challenge, given the reality, the Donna Rice story came out and the frenzy erupted. Had he evaded comment, I think he might have survived the Donna Rice episode, at least if his PR people had handled it well. But the combination of the chutzpah of the challenge and the immediate appearance of the story after the challenge was beyond what even the deftest public relations campaign could handle. Senator Hart was toast. In the case of the current crop of candidates, however, their peccadilloes are old news (unless, of course, some juicy new ones come to light). That doesn’t make their private behavior any less egregious than Hart’s, just less politically potent. Giuliani, for instance, has been asked about his marital track record, most recently on Fox News Sunday yesterday, and he has been forthright about it. He said that he, like everyone else, is a miserable sinner, that he has learned from his sins, and seeks forgiveness—which is a Christian duty. He asks to be judged on his positive achievements as a politician, not his acknowledged failures as a human being. Whether that will work we’ll have to wait and see, but people in my experience are pretty forgiving of bad behavior if they perceive honest contrition. They are a lot less forgiving of hypocrisy and arrogance, which is what they perceived in the case of Senator Hart.
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