THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 8, 1997 TAG: 9702080351
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 93 lines
Nine years after being hounded out of politics, Gary Hart has a few ideas about how it could be improved.
The former U.S. senator from Colorado had a meteoric rise and fall on the national political scene in the 1980s. He challenged former Vice President Walter Mondale for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and finished a close second. He ran again in 1988 and was considered a serious contender until a Miami newspaper staked out his Capitol Hill townhouse and reported that he had spent the weekend with a woman who wasn't his wife.
He exited the race soon afterward, complaining that the media's scrutiny of his personal life had made it impossible to focus on the issues.
Hart has kept a low profile since, but has done plenty of thinking and writing about what ails American politics today. He shared his views Friday during a national video-conference at Old Dominion University on ``Ethics in Politics and Government.''
He and his fellow panelists never referred directly to Hart's spectacular descent from the political pinnacle, but there were repeated echoes of it.
Hart was asked if good people are deterred from seeking political office today because they fear attacks on their moral character.
``Most people in this country are of fine moral character,'' Hart said. ``They just don't want some reporter going through their garbage.''
The panelists agreed that there is something seriously wrong when 51 percent of the voters sit out a presidential election and 76 percent tell pollsters they seldom if ever trust the government to do the right thing.
But in general, the speakers weren't willing to blame the politicians. Instead, they pointed the finger at the media, free-spending special interests and the people themselves.
They agreed that Americans hold their leaders to a stricter standard than do voters in most other democracies.
For a politician in the United States, ``it's one false move and you're dead,'' said Lawrence Hatab, chairman of the philosophy and religious studies department at ODU.
That attitude is traceable to ``the Puritan ethic,'' said G. William Whitehurst, a former local Republican congressman who now lectures at ODU.
The private lives of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy ``were nothing to write home about, believe me,'' Whitehurst said. ``But did that disqualify them from serving? Of course not.''
The accelerating concentration of American news media in the hands of a few big conglomerates is a dangerous trend, Hart said. Many of these conglomerates are also in the entertainment business, he noted, and their highest priority is the bottom line.
``The entertainment function has swallowed up the information function,'' he said, ``so now, all journalism is tabloid journalism.''
Hart and Whitehurst both sounded warnings about the pervasive presence of money in politics.
Whitehurst told of being handed $2,000 in cash by a senior Republican colleague when he was seeking re-election as a freshman congressman. Spend it any way he liked, he was told; there was no need to account for it.
He recalled feeling the collective shame of Congress when several of its members were videotaped stuffing wads of cash in their pockets during the FBI sting known as Abscam.
To clean up the system, radical campaign finance reform is needed, Hart said. His recommendation: Give free television time to candidates who agree to abide by strict spending limits.
Ultimately, however, the two ex-politicians agreed that Americans need to look deep within themselves and put the national interest above their own selfish concerns.
During his 18 years in Congress, Whitehurst said, ``80 percent of the mail I received was from somebody who had their hand out. I developed a degree of cynicism after a while. I finally just capitulated and went ahead and voted against my best judgment.''
Hart said Americans are ``people of paradox: We want low taxes and high public services. We want a strong military, but we may not want to serve in it.
``The answer is, Americans, grow up! Grow up! You cannot have middle-class entitlements, a $250 billion defense budget and a balanced budget. Grow up!''
After the videoconference, Hart refused to be drawn into a discussion of the so-called ``character'' issue that brought his political downfall.
``I think the voters of this country, or of my state or any other state, have the ability to determine character,'' he said. ``Character is the quality of your life as a whole.''
Does he foresee ever returning to politics? No, Hart said.
``I never saw it as a career and never wanted to,'' he said. ``I had 12 years in the Senate and a chance to run for national office. That's all anyone can ask.
``I don't need to be in politics like some career politicians. That's part of our problem - people trying to remain in office too long.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by TAMARA VONINSKI/The Virginian-Pilot
Gary Hart, a former two-term U.S. senator, participated in a
videoconference at ODU Friday on ``Ethics in Politics and
Government.''
KEYWORDS: GARY HART