Why Gary Hart Lost
Henry, Jack Germond and Jules Witcover, Peter Goldman and Tony Fuller, and William III
Why Gary Hart Lost by Jack Germond, Jules Witcover, Peter Goldman, Tony Fuller, and William A. Henry III Missing beef. . . The 1984 presidential campaign may not have been the most memorable one...
...Back in Washington, Henkel was trying to find out whether Hart had seen the script and had approved it...
...One more thing," Mondale said...
...Reforming entitlement programs would upset older voters...
...In Ray Strother, the Hart ad-maker, Caddell had an obvious and willing ally...
...They would be pulled off the air at once, he told reporters who were now hounding him about their use...
...It would inflame Arab countries, which regarded Jerusalem as occupied territory...
...Yet in New York, he sought the Jewish vote by urging that the U.S...
...Hart wanted to lead a "new generation" of Democrats who were profoundly disturbed by their party leaders catering to powerful special interest groups...
...On the strength of heavy backing from black voters, he won Alabama with 34 percent to 21 each for Hart and Glenn and 19 for Jesse Jackson...
...Reprinted with permission of The Atlantic Monthly Press...
...Bushkin took them down and shortly afterward gave them to Hart as the campaign plane headed for Springfield, Illinois, where he had scheduled a press conference...
...I had no quarrel with Vrdolyak...
...Germond and Witcover The 'Fast Eddie' gambit Five days before the Illinois primary, Caddell had an idea of how the election could still be swung decisively for Hart...
...But the degree to which the political community suspended its disbelief was quite beyond their dreams...
...MUDD: Well, he was in danger, everyone thought, of really slipping through the ropes today, and he's not done that...
...All he had to do was hold on...
...Some of them began warming to the idea, and Mondale spoke the slogan a few times, warily, as if he were trying on a purple suit...
...He was actually crying...
...In the weeks before and after "Super Tuesday," a strong undercurrent ran against Hart in the press coverage of his campaign...
...Where's the beef...
...Son of a bitch, there's nothing on there—there's no beef...
...It's Hart...
...One of the differences, by the way, is if a president goes back into office— and one of us must, I think, to save this country—you cannot go back so committed to a handful of constituency groups that you cannot make this economy grow again...
...In Rhode Island, Hart won 45 percent to Mondale's 35...
...The subliminal message this conveyed was devastating...
...In Georgia, Mondale squeaked by with 30 percent to 27 percent for Hart, 21 for Jackson, 18 for Glenn...
...He appealed in areas where incomes ranked above the national average and unemployment below it...
...At about ten o'clock that night, as the situation festered in Illinois, Strother arrived at his hotel in Litttle Rock...
...The moderator, John Chancellor of NBC News, asked the hypothetical question: what would each candidate do if as president he were notified that a Czech airliner full of people was flying toward the North American Air Defense Command headquarters and ignoring warnings from U.S...
...HART: No...
...Many primaries and caucuses followed New York, and Hart would catch a second wind, winning 7 of the last 11 contests, including California...
...Mondale had won a big victory in Alabama...
...In this case, the Mondale operatives made a point of helping the process—selling hard the idea that winning two states in the South would be a bonanza for them...
...Mondale drew almost 45 percent of the vote, to just over 27 percent for Hart and 25.5 percent for Jackson...
...The performance, and the spark of hope it struck, lightened spirits in the room...
...now he had won the largest prize in Florida and come very close to taking Georgia from Mondale...
...Hart's lack of courage in this regard was apparent in whom he chose not to offend with new ideas...
...Mondale's polling confirmed the same sudden turnaround...
...Whatever the case, Caddell had no reservations about the political wisdom of running the ads...
...In Massachusetts, it was Hart 39 percent and Mondale 26...
...There's a rumor going all over Capitol Hill that you're doing negative ads against Gary Hart for Mondale," White said Scalera told him...
...The first hard evidence of success came at 10 p.m...
...You said you're going to peek in," Glenn insisted...
...Vrdolyak was the classic "Fast Eddie"—a political swifty right out of Central Casting, smooth and polished but with the street smarts clearly showing through...
...HART...
...Then it was back live to Mondale headquarters, and Lisa Myers, who announced: "They are euphoric...
...Goehring thought it would be great if the old ladies were yelling that at Gary Hart...
...New York combined extremes of suburban, mostly Republican, affluence and sprawling urban decay...
...There's these old ladies, you see," he said, "and they walk into this sterile place, you know, every fast-food joint U.S.A., and there's this bun, and suddenly she says, 'Where's the beef...
...At least, the results should have been seen as an impressive victory...
...MUDD: But you didn't win in Georgia and you didn't win in Alabama...
...Bushkin checked back with the headquarters, triggering a frantic search for the ads or any evidence of their existence...
...But Hart had tried to have it both ways...
...Beckel thought he had never seen so much depression in a single room...
...This is why Hart's flip-flop on the Jerusalem embassy question hurt so badly...
...Nothing cruel, nothing mean...
...The editors...
...the [memo] stayed in Berman's briefcase and went home with him to Washington, undelivered...
...You've got it...
...It was a conscious decision...
...That led to an even more bizarre exchange over whether Hart imitated John Kennedy and whether politicians were phony...
...He said you look in there and see people...
...Strother then began a frantic but largely futile effort to locate station managers in the middle of the night, get them out of bed, endure their irritated explanations about why the ads couldn't be killed, and try to go to the station to do so...
...He says 'New ideas, new ideas, new ideas,' and what the fuck is a new idea, where's the beef...
...Beckel was bound home for the capital that day, and his knuckles were already whitening at the prospect of the plane ride...
...That was Chancellor's," Hart protested...
...But in both their public pronouncements, and in the sotto voce "insides' dope they passed on to reporters, they depicted such an accomplishment as probably beyond their reach...
...Mondale had been relentlessly telling voters that Hart was too unsteady to be trusted in the White House...
...Then, after a couple of questions about future primaries, Mudd asked: "A lot of people want to know, Senator, why do you imitate John Kennedy so much...
...Goldman and Fuller Hart won seven of nine contests on Super Tuesday...
...So all you won was Florida, which isn't a true southern state...
...But the television networks viewed the results very differently—and demonstrated once again the extraordinary power they have to set the agenda and define the results in modern political campaigns...
...It was the fact that [the ad] personalized Vrdolyak...
...Where Hart failed was in translating those ideas so they could be readily grasped by those who ultimately mattered most: the voters...
...Reprinted with permission from Macmillian Publishing Company...
...Privately, they were convinced they needed to win two of the southern primaries and the Oklahoma caucuses just to keep the campaign breathing...
...When are you going to try to get rid of him...
...Beckel said...
...it reposed in a briefcase at his feet, and Berman had steeled himself to show it to Mondale if [chief Mondale strategist Jim] Johnson said the word...
...Beckel was pacing the floor furiously, acting all the parts...
...He signed off on that!' The next day, Hart told Chicago Sun Times reporter Robert Hillman in an interview aboard the campaign plane that he was not going to get involved in local Chicago politics in the course of the Illinois primary campaign...
...sounded somewhat silly even in 1984, but it was a devastating one-liner for one reason: it rang so true...
...I prayed for you today," Mondale called out teasingly...
...fighter pilots...
...Peter Rodino, who was a White client...
...This spot hit the air," he said afterwards, "and 24 hours later, we were 12 or 13 points ahead...
...One of the old women finally gets the owner on the phone—you know, this big, fat, rich guy, S.S...
...As every hour passed and the ads continued to appear, even as he insisted he was trying to get them off the air, the incident was playing directly and dramatically into Mondale's hands...
...Germond and Witcover Pander and equivocate Hart had to win in New York...
...Hart still ran stronger among those groups than with the rest of the population...
...He was a man of a thousand superstitions, one of which was that you never watch a client debate, but he didn't have to be there to sense that Mondale was going to win...
...A light bulb flashed over Beckel's head, and when he flew South to Georgia the next day to help prepare Mondale for yet another debate, he was feeling more bullish than ever...
...Mondale, for his part, recognized at once an opening to fan the "unsteadiness" issue against Hart...
...within the stretch of a few weeks, Hart went from being on the verge of sweeping the nomination to being hopelessly in second place...
...What actually happened was a tribute to the famous Washington rumor mill...
...Hart had also taken a not insubstantial chance in the middle of his campaign by publishing A New Democracy, which many reporters never got around to reading...
...Hart decided to make a direct public appeal to Mondale to join him on a higher road of positive campaigning, and Bushkin was calling in to discuss the planned statement with David Landau, the chief campaign issues man...
...I don't think it is...
...Hart and his traveling aides were already concerned about the way negative campaigning had been dominating the dialogue, crowding out Hart's positive "new ideas" message...
...Although both men insisted all through the campaign and thereafter that they were uncomfortable with attack politics, Mondale found himself able to attack when the occasion demanded—and Gary Hart did not...
...The next day, White said, he got a phone call from Charlie Scalera, an aide to Rep...
...Independence was mistrusted, not prized, in a candidate campaigning in New York...
...The phone was ringing as he entered his room...
...A candidate must be "surefooted," Mondale was saying now, and he didn't have to elaborate...
...His carefully constructed program for military reform had profoundly affected Democratic thinking on defense issues...
...How Gary Hart lost the Democratic nomination is not just an interesting story, but an instructive one for those who saw in his candidacy a glimmer of how Democrats might be able to recapture the White House...
...They were told no such ads existed...
...Beckel sat smiling in satisfaction at a monitor in the green room as Hart went on and was asked straight off what had gone wrong in Georgia and Alabama...
...New York's was "closed" to all but Democrats...
...Tudge,' " Henkel recalled Hart saying, " 'I don't like it...
...Even before the primaries he had (vainly) sought the endorsement of the National Education Association by embracing their platform in full...
...Bun, got a couple of hussies with him, and she says, 'Where's the beef?' and he falls over backward and crashes ." They still weren't getting it...
...In general,] Hart's performance [in Atlanta] was clearly lacking—and one gaffe in particular made him a target for ridicule...
...I've never seen anything like this," Caddell lamented...
...And well he might, they have kept him in the race tonight" The NBC anchorman then began recapitulating the results...
...He rejected all of them...
...A year earlier, Caddell had been involved in the bitter primary race for the Chicago Democratic mayoral nomination, handling polling and political advice for the eventual winner, Harold Washington...
...According to White, Beckel said he thought the time had come to do some negative ads against Hart and asked him to come up with some ideas...
...It would further the image of the United States as a submissive endorser of anything Israel chose to do...
...We were all scared to death," a Mondale aide recalled...
...They are: Wake Me When It's Over by Jack Germond and Jules Witcover (C) 1985 By Jack Germond and Jules Witcover...
...Hart also won the caucuses in Washington, Oklahoma and Nevada...
...Mondale and some of the others weren't getting it...
...It didn't look as if there would be many dissenters...
...The Mondale camp was in fact astonished that the world had bought their party line that Hart had been stopped...
...it might rankle the young...
...Strother called all the radio and television stations in the Chicago area, to no avail...
...He had also warned his aides that such moves often backfire...
...barely even with Jesse Jackson there—because he beat Hart soundly in the suburbs, among independents, among the college-educated and affluent, and even, according to some polls, among voters under 40...
...Hart had the misfortune to be the first in line but not the wit to see the folly of trying to answer...
...Henkel called Ray Strother, the Hart ad-maker, asking him to try to locate them...
...But he could, and did, decide to truckle to other constituencies, rather than play New York's politics his own way and assume that a reputation for consistency and integrity was a greater asset than any marginal gain in votes...
...The 1984 presidential campaign may not have been the most memorable one of recent years...
...It was a game try, but the Mondale thrust was sure-fire for the television news coverage of the debate...
...Voters had recently learned of a more disturbing side to Gary Hart—his mysterious age change, the uncertainty he had shown in handling the Vrodlyak ad If he was also just a newer version of the old politics, why not settle for the real thing...
...I've been in these airplanes, and you don't go up peeking in windows" The other candidates were wise enough to recognize the trap...
...Yet he urged the embassy transfer, and when Mondale predictably characterized him as a latecomer to the isssue, Hart plunged into an unedifying, hairsplitting attempt to prove how long he had been a believer...
...You need it" Beckel grinned and walked over to Mondale's car...
...As Henry describes it, "Mondale did not have to depend on New York City voters—he ran...
...But the television networks viewed the results very differently—and demonstrated once again the extraordinary power they have to set the agenda and define the results in modern political campaigns...
...In Florida, the largest state holding a primary, Hart defeated Mondale with 39 percent of the vote to 36 percent...
...You just put them together.' Gary said, 'That's good...
...But] he did that reluctantly, because of the negative aspects of the commercial ." Henkel went on: "While I was talking to Gary, I wrote on the script, 'Make sure that this commercial is not running.' I handed the script to David Landau [another top Hart adviser...
...There was no reason to anger Vrdolyak by attacking him...
...Settle down," he told her...
...He was willing to go with the generic ad...
...Indeed, in every contested presidential primary the state had held, it had preferred the Democratic candidate who paid the most attention to labor unions and the Jews...
...So you have not got rid of him...
...This thing just blew the suburbs of Chicago...
...Would you do your Teddy Kennedy imitation for me now...
...Is that correct...
...But what really mattered was not Hart's losing so much as whom he lost...
...Mondale had pulled far ahead in the delegate count, and he seemed assured of continuing to draw a disproportionate share of the "superdelegates" chosen from among party hierarchs and elected officials...
...I think that's a wonderful hypothetical, but it's ridiculous," Mondale scoffed...
...The senior Mondale team was not...
...Washington, seeking to become Chicago's first black mayor, had run not only against Byrne but also against Vrdolyak, the hero of Chicago's white ethnics, intentionally polarizing the contest by race...
...I don't want to use a commercial that uses somebody else's name...
...Still, two of Hart's failures clearly were within his control, and they proved instrumental in dooming his candidacy...
...The difference between me and Walter Mondale was that he was the candidate of the organization," Hart later explained...
...He was the frontrunner in this race for a year and a half, and he, as you will remember, two weeks ago challenged me to come to the South and campaign, which I did, and campaigned all across this country...this campaign was the only one who was campaigning nationally...
...MUDD: I've heard it's hilarious...
...With a second strong white candidate running, State's Attorney Richard M. Daley, the white vote split, and Washington squeezed through...
...Real good," Beckel answered, grinning broadly...
...We had gone to great lengths not to get involved in Chicago politics...
...Neither he nor some of the others had seen the ad or knew what Beckel was talking about...
...Kick the shit out of them, and remember, you're the best there is...
...Tudge,' he said, 'I've got bad news...
...His candidate had won the primary over incumbent mayor Jane Byrne by maximizing black support and running hard against entrenched machine politics, represented and best symbolized by Byrnes's most influential backer, Cook County Democratic Chairman and leader of the Chicago City Council, Alderman Edward Vrdolyak...
...I've got the answer," Beckel said...
...He and his girlfriend, Mary Goehring, had been watching TV at his place and had caught a Wendy's commercial, a catchy spot with three elderly women inspecting a bready burger at a rival fast-food chain and demanding, "Where's the beef...
...You know, when I hear your ideas," he said, looking directly at Hart, "I'm reminded of that ad, 'Where's the beef?'" As laughter ran through the audience, Hart tried to respond and turn the argument back against Mondale...
...Mike Berman [another top Mondale aide] had brought along his memo on the logistics of Mondale's withdrawal from the race...
...likewise, he had assiduously courted women's groups and the AFL-CIO...
...Beckel said, by now pleading...
...One of the senior issue advisers at the meeting, John Holum, who had worked with Hart in the 1972 McGovern campaign, wrote down a few lines for Hart to use in response to the reported ad...
...And it would therefore weaken the Americans' effectiveness as peacemakers in the region, all for no practical gain...
...That's the story most Americans saw...
...MUDD: Senator, not to take anything away from your victory this evening, but it appears your principal opponent, Walter Mondale, is on his way back...
...We both came to the same conclusion," Strother later said, "that the association with Vrdolyak was deadly!' They agreed that the thing to do was prepare and run an ad for the Illinois primary putting "Fast Eddie" right on Mondale's back...
...He had fared best in "open" primaries, in which independents could participate...
...Where's the beef...
...NBC was "declaring" Mondale a winner in Georgia...
...And in Hawaii an uncommitted slate defeated the Mondale delegates in a result that was viewed there as either a standoff or a triumph for Hart, who had no delegate candidates of his own there...
...You don't have to say anything...
...Mondale won only two of the nine events...
...But Hillman, checking in with his office at the next stop, was informed by the Sun Times's chief political writer, Basil Talbott, that a new Hart ad rapping Vrdolyak was being aired...
...How are you Bob...
...I propose new ways to make this economy grow again and to create real social justice in the 1980s, and for some reason Vice President Mondale proposes to talk about what my birthday is...
...We're going to hang Eddie Vrdolyak around Walter Mondale's neck...
...There are three western caucus states still to be heard from...
...Two weeks earlier, Gary Hart had been naked in the South...
...They hoped it was true, and they saw encouraging signs in the exit polls from Florida that it might be, even though Mondale had lost there...
...We knew if we could come back in a couple of states, there would be an inclination in the press to keep the thing going, that they weren't going to hand it over to Hart...
...Hart, Henkel said, was the one who focused on the name Vrdolyak...
...But for them, too, he had fallen to second choice...
...Jews, however, by and large loved Moynihan's idea, in part because it affirmed Israel's right to Jerusalem, the emotional center of the Hebrew faith, but even more for the very reason that others objected to it: the move would force the United States to cast its lot with Israel alone, more unequivocally than ever...
...It made for a better story on the evening news—and promised a longer campaign—to interpret "Super Thesday" as a comeback for "Fighting Fritz...
...Back from where...
...Hillman, feeling he had been lied to, sought out Bushkin for clarification, but she was in the dark...
...It was a small, almost trivial issue, and that made it all the worse...
...Yup," Beckel said, beaming, "it's the comeback of the year!' —Goldman and Fuller The ad that never was TWo days after Super Tuesday, as Hart campaigned in Illinois, Pudge Henkel [Hart's campaign manager] met at Hart headquarters in Washington with the campaign's outside advisers and senior staff members to consider, among other things, how to cope with Mondale's negative campaigning...
...Unless something extraordinary was done, removing the ad would have to wait until Monday, and Henkel still had not even reached Strother...
...Most foreign policy experts in both parties thought the idea was dangerous...
...Don't you see...
...The discrediting would have to be accomplished through the press, and the emerging conventional wisdom of reporters rated New York as rocky, testing terrain for Hart...
...Henry As any retelling of Gary Hart's candidacy reveals, much of what hurt him was trivial, or not even his fault...
...It's what we've been trying to say all week long...
...Even more important, voters needed a sense that Hart's "new ideas" had an edge to them, that they were substantial enough to fight for...
...Isn't it great...
...Caddell was to blame for the Vrdolyak ads," he said later...
...Walter Mondale, alive and well tonight," declared Brokaw, "in this race for the Democratic presidential nomination, thanking, as he put it, his friends in the South...
...Above all, Hart had fashioned his persona as a leader by stressing his lack of ties to encumbering special interests...
...The managers of most of the stations involved had gone home for the weekend, with the weekend programming locked into computer-controlled systems...
...HART Well, I'm not quite sure...
...Voters did settle for Mondale in New York, by an 18-point margin...
...Where's the beef...
...HART: Well, I don't—it's first of all not my task...
...The following excerpts, which pick up the campaign days before the March 13 "Super Tuesday" primaries in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, are taken from three of the recent books on the 1984 campaign...
...the flow had been going his way at the end...
...National service was not emphasized at all...
...Bushkin, armed with several excuses Hart could use, went down to him with the bad news...
...He insisted that Hart had never approved their use as Caddell had said...
...Henkel, realizing how strongly Hart felt was— as he put it himself later—very "exercised," and he tried to reach Strother to find out what had happened, and to get the ad pulled...
...Hart had campaigned against Mondale for currying favor with special interest groups...
...After Hart had exited, Beckel got his turn on camera...
...Not "had to" in the sense of some journalists' imposed expectations, but "had to" numerically...
...At this point," Strother said, "the message became, 'Why can't Gary Hart pull the ads?' Just what I predicted would happen happened...
...The Quest for the Presidency by Peter Goldman and Tony Fuller (C) 1985 by Newsweek, Inc...
...In New York, where Democrats perhaps invented and surely perfected the technique of the balanced ticket, special interests made up the bulk of the party, and they all wanted to be sure they owned a piece of the nominee...
...And besides, getting the ad off the air would be a major task under any circumstances at this hour...
...Illinois, he said, was the turning point for him...
...The interview was extraordinary in light of the fact that Hart had just won three of five primaries, including those in the two largest states at stake...
...A special counsel to the campaign, Ken Guido, reported he had been told that an opposition radio ad was apparently being prepared in New York that transparently raised the matter of the candidate's earlier name change from Hartpence to Hart...
...That commercial is running...
...The first was illustrated by Mondale's famous retort during the Atlanta debat4• the second was Hart's equivocation during the New York primary on moving the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem...
...So you're really not a national candidate yet, are you...
...We were trying to set up Hart and the press...
...Now Vrdolyak was supporting Mondale...
...Just real good!' Hart threw him a cold stare—a look, Beckel thought, that could have killed—and was shown into the studio...
...But it was too little, too lat4• his moment had passed...
...Germond and Witcover `The comeback of the year' The next morning, Hart appeared on the Today Show and found Bob Beckel waiting to go on when he had finished...
...Apparently, he's won in Georgia and Alabama...
...Around this time, Kathy Bushkin called in from Arkansas, where the Hart entourage had just arrived...
...This lack of courage also lay behind Hart's second failing, one that was even more telling...
...The pilots had reported that "the lights are on and it's full of people...
...Tax reform might upset both labor and business...
...I needed everybody's help...
...I felt if I was the nominee I was going to have to go back in there...
...Finally, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, Washington time, Henkel got Hart on the phone and read him the ad...
...And then Hart made his second major mistake involving television advertising, imagined or real, in two days...
...Hart had always been contemptuous of campaigners who in his view prostrated, even prostituted, themselves to win votes...
...But his reply was flat, convoluted—and too serious for the moment...
...Reprinted with permission from Bantam Books...
...We may do very well out there...
...Beckel said, flushed with creation...
...Mondale thanked him, and Beckel started to go...
...Good luck tonight," he said...
...Where's the Beef...
...Why not, Caddell reasoned, run against "Fast Eddie" again...
...I am going to continue to campaign...
...And a game try That afternoon in Atlanta, when Hart was outlining his proposals for improving the economy, Mondale quickly found an opening...
...I think there's a lot of evidence," he said, "that my opponent's getting unnerved !' The reporters went back to Hart and asked him about the "phantom" ads...
...It wasn't necessarily lost, but it lost all its steam built up in New Hampshire and Florida" Because Hart wasn't able to get the ad off the air after saying he would, Caddell said, he suddenly plunged from being ahead of Mondale by 12 or 13 percentage points to falling 9 points behind...
...We won Massachusetts, we won Florida—the two largest states...
...So tonight," Brokaw summed up, "Gary Hart wins three states...
...It was remarkable, however, for the unexpected surge of support that almost gave Senator Gary Hart the Democratic nomination over Walter Mondale...
...And so we combined a campaign in New England and the West with a campaign in the South, and I think we've won at least one state [in the South] and for practical purposes won another one [Georgia...
...and Visions of America: How We Saw the 1984 Election by William A. Henry III (© 1985...
...But Hart was out campaigning and hence out of the pocket...
...Mondale's response was an uncomprehending silence...
...You'd think they locked up the nomination ." A few minutes later came an interview of Hart by Roger Mudd...
...It was Henkel," he reported later, "weeping on the telephone...
...Congratulations," the host, Bryant Gumbel, told him...
...All the undecideds we were having in our data, this thing just blew wide open . . . it was the first comeback on Mondale!' In other words, the Vrdolyak ads, for all the reservations about taking him on directly, according to Caddell, were virtually assuring a victory for Hart in Illinois, three short days before the balloting...
...It's on the air...
...Right after Super Thesday, Bob Beckel had talked to an old friend from New York, Joe White, a specialist in negative political radio ads...
...This debate was, as it turned out, only the first of a series in which Hart had problems dealing with Mondale in that format...
...Don't you see...
...The staff mix-ups over derogatory television ads were relatively minor, and Hart conceded his error...
...If they were civilians, I'd just let it keep going" John Glenn, obviously itching for a chance to take a dig at Hart, leaped in...
...After having apologized to Mondale for having charged him, without proof, of preparing to run unfair ads, Hart now said his own campaign had erred again in running the anti Vrdolyak ads...
...embassy be moved to Jerusalem...
...Germond and Witcover Super Tuesday con job Whatever doubts may have been raised about Hart, they were not substantial enough to deny him an impressive victory when the votes were counted on Super Tuesday...
...And a final question," said Mudd...
...Isn't it terrific...
...Hart's only chance was to beat Mondale often enough in primaries, in enough different kinds of states, to discredit him whatever his numerical advantage...
...He informed her of the alleged ad, and then he read her the lines Holum had just written...
...Hart asked with cool civility...
...Hart's having to retract his false accusation about 'negative' television advertising played directly into Mondale's hands...
...Strother had worked for Daley, one of Vrdolyak's political archenemies, in the same campaign...
...The Mondale camp determined that the best way to block Hart's surging campaign] was to deflate the whole idea of new ideas—and [campaign manager Bob] Beckel had some thoughts about that...
...The report made White laugh because he had only begun to think of some ideas, and the Washington rumor mill had picked up on the ads even before he had gotten them out of his head...
...He said, 'Why have you done this?' I said, 'What have I done?' He said, 'Those ads went on the air without Gary's approval...
...Very simple...
...The point was that Hart, or his campaign, for which he was ultimately responsible, had goofed again...
...It was not that Hart lacked ideas, "new," good, or otherwise...
...I said," Caddell recalled later, " 'This is what we're going to do...
...Let me say first," he said, "there's such a fundamental lack of understanding by saying we're going to go up and peek in the window on this thing and see whether they have military uniforms on...
...To Landau, it had all been a cute Caddell ploy...
...No one else could have been responsible...
...senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem...
...Hart came close to finishing third...
...And that's the major difference, I think between myself and Walter Mondale...
...Mondale said, 'How can a man run the country if he can't run his own campaign?' At that point, the campaign changed direction...
...The [consensus] when Beckel found them gathered at the Hilton in Columbus, was that they might well be holding their last serious strategy meeting of the campaign...
...I completed the conversation with Gary, and about 30 minutes after that, David Landau came in...
...More so than the other candidates, Hart had attracted many loyal supporters precisely because of his genuine interest in the intellectual side of politics...
...We made a mistake!' Hart went out and publicly apologized to Mondale before television cameras, saying he had been in error about the ads being used...
...Almost, but not quite...
...Hart had burned his bridges with the unions...
...Check with Pat Caddell .' He said, 'Gary wants those ads off the air...
...They didn't need detailed position papers, but they did need more than such innocuous-sounding nostrums as "individual training accounts...
...Hart had won in Florida, Massachusetts, and, "as expected," in Rhode Island...
...Mondale himself said later that "if Illinois had gone down it would have been very difficult to carry on...
...If the people they looked in and saw they had uniforms on, I'd shoot the aircraft down," he replied...
...Here was Hart, accusing Mondale of currying favor with powerful interest groups, not only selling himself in the same way, but doing it so cheaply...
...He was concentrating on the South, as was Senator Glenn...
...We stood off Vice President Mondale in the home state of the president he served with...
...But Strother, too, was out of the pocket...
...His first major strategic decision was to endorse a plan, put forward by New York's senior U.S...
...The outcome on election day, April 3, decisively ended the Gary Hart phenomenon: he might remain a candidate, but he was clearly no longer a wonder...
...In the end, his failure to be true to his own best instincts had defeated him more surely than anything Walter Mondale did...
...He was flying from North Carolina to Arkansas, where he had another candidate-client...
...We worked at it," Beckel said...
...Also, Keith Glaser, the state coordinator in Iowa who was now back in Washington, reported that word had come in from the field that the Mondale campaign had produced and was running a commercial that talked about Hart's name and age...
...And I think all of those represent major victories...
...On arrival, he issued [a] challenge to Mondale: "I have spoken of new ideas for the future," Hart said, "and for some reason former Vice President Mondale wants to talk about my handwriting...
...I've spoken about a new generation of leadership for this country and for some reason Vice President Mondale wants to talk about my family name!' Reporters traveling with Hart called the Mondale campaign...
...I think you'd hear...
...But Beckel wasn't sure his brainstorm had caught on until he saw Mondale pull into the Hilton parking lot the next morning, coming back from church...
...Walter Mondale wins two— two of the big southern states that he had to to stay in this race...
...How Hart felt about Eddie Vrdolyak, however, was not the point now...
...when NBC News, which had elected to do its special coverage in prime time, came on the air with Tom Brokaw presiding...
Vol. 17 • October 1985 • No. 9
