- Gary Hart (D-CO) was the 1984 Democratic presidential runner-up to Walter Mondale, and the early frontrunner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination before withdrawing after the Donna Rice scandal aboard the yacht "Monkey Business."
- The 1987 Hart scandal — in which he challenged reporters to follow him and was photographed with Rice on the yacht — transformed American political journalism, opening personal conduct to scrutiny that previously would have been considered off-limits.
- Hart served as US Senator from Colorado (1975-1987) for two terms, known for his national security expertise and forward-looking "Atari Democrats" message that emphasized technology and innovation over traditional New Deal liberalism.
- He has remained active in national security and intelligence policy — co-chaired the Hart-Rudman Commission on national security in 2001 (which warned about a major terrorist attack on US soil months before 9/11) and has written extensively on US foreign policy.
Biography
Gary Warren Hartpence was born on November 28, 1936, in Ottawa, Kansas, to evangelical Christian parents. He attended Bethany Nazarene College, studied at Yale Divinity School, then graduated from Yale Law School in 1964. After working for Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1968 and serving as national campaign manager for George McGovern in 1972, he moved to Colorado and won election to the US Senate in 1974, one of the large Democratic class that swept in after Watergate. He served two Senate terms, declining to seek a third term in 1986 to focus on his presidential campaign. He changed his surname from Hartpence to Hart early in his career.
In the Senate, Hart established himself as an unusually substantive defense intellectual and foreign policy thinker. He served on the Armed Services Committee for twelve years, wrote extensively on military modernization and maneuver warfare doctrine, and developed a coherent post-industrial economic vision for the Democratic Party — emphasizing technology, innovation, and education over traditional New Deal industrial-era programs. His 1984 presidential primary campaign against Walter Mondale became one of the most competitive in modern Democratic history. Starting the year virtually unknown, Hart won the New Hampshire primary by a large margin after finishing a strong second in Iowa, and went on to win 16 states. He forced the race to the convention but lost the nomination to Mondale 1,507 to 2,191 delegates after Mondale secured enough support from superdelegates.
Hart was the clear front-runner entering the 1988 cycle, leading in national polls by double digits. He announced his candidacy in April 1987 and almost immediately became the subject of press scrutiny regarding his personal life. After the Miami Herald staked out his Washington home and published a story reporting a young woman had spent the night — and after the National Enquirer published a photograph of Donna Rice sitting on his lap on a boat named Monkey Business — Hart withdrew from the race on May 8, 1987. He briefly re-entered in December but withdrew again before Iowa. He remained intellectually active in subsequent decades, co-chairing the Hart-Rudman Commission on national security, which predicted a catastrophic domestic terrorist attack nine months before September 11, 2001.
Key Policy Areas
Defense Reform
Hart was one of the Senate’s most serious defense intellectuals, co-authoring “America Can Win” (1986) with military historian William Lind. He argued that the US military was optimized for the wrong kind of war — relying on attrition and firepower against an enemy that would use maneuver and surprise. He advocated for the “military reform movement” inside the Pentagon, pushing for lighter, more mobile forces, better training, and higher-quality officer development. His ideas were controversial in the early 1980s but anticipated many of the lessons the US military drew from later conflicts. His Armed Services Committee work gave him substantive credibility on national security issues unusual for a Democrat of the era.
Post-Industrial Economics
Hart was among the first major Democratic politicians to articulate a post-New Deal economic vision for the party. Rather than defending the existing industrial economy and existing union structures, he argued that Democrats needed to embrace the technology-driven transformation of the economy — investing in education, research and development, and new industries rather than trying to preserve declining ones. His “Atari Democrats” label (coined by critics but partly embraced by Hart and allies like Richard Gephardt) represented an attempt to orient the Democratic Party toward a knowledge economy at a time when most of the party was still focused on manufacturing. The framework has aged well as a diagnosis, if not always as a prescription.
National Security Foresight
Hart’s most prophetic contribution came after his political career ended. As co-chair of the Hart-Rudman Commission on National Security in the Twenty-First Century (1998–2001), he oversaw a comprehensive assessment of US national security vulnerabilities. The commission’s final report, released in January 2001, stated that “a direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter century,” and recommended the creation of a National Homeland Security Agency. The report was largely ignored by the incoming Bush administration. After September 11, Hart and Rudman testified before Congress that the commission’s warning had gone unheeded.
Major Races
| Year | Race | Opponent | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | US Senate, Colorado | Peter Dominick (R) | Won 57% | Part of post-Watergate Democratic wave |
| 1980 | US Senate, Colorado | Mary Estill Buchanan (R) | Won 51% | Narrow re-election in Reagan landslide year |
| 1984 | Democratic Primary (President) | Walter Mondale (D), Jesse Jackson (D) | 2nd place | Won 16 states including NH; lost in brokered convention to Mondale |
| 1988 | Democratic Primary (President) | Dukakis, Jackson, others (D) | Withdrew (twice) | Led polls by double digits; withdrew May 8, 1987 (Donna Rice); brief re-entry Dec 1987; withdrew again March 1988 |
Hart’s 1984 primary performance was remarkable for a candidate who began the year with 1% name recognition nationally. His New Hampshire victory ignited one of the most competitive primary contests of the modern era. The 1988 campaign collapse, by contrast, happened in fewer than three weeks — one of the fastest rises and falls in presidential campaign history. His brief return in December 1987 was widely seen as quixotic; he won 4% in New Hampshire and withdrew before the primary calendar fully unfolded.
Historical Standing & Legacy
Gary Hart’s historical legacy is contested and has shifted over time. For decades the dominant narrative was simple: a brilliant politician destroyed by personal recklessness and poor judgment, who made matters worse by challenging the press to follow him. The “character question” — whether private conduct was relevant to public fitness — became the defining media debate triggered by Hart’s downfall, and journalists largely concluded that it was. The 1987 coverage established the modern template of treating a candidate’s personal life as a legitimate area of political scrutiny.
Reassessments since the 1990s have been more nuanced. The Hart-Rudman Commission’s prescient 2001 national security warning gave Hart a measure of vindication on substance. Several journalists and historians have argued that the press’s handling of the Hart story was disproportionate — that the affair, whatever its moral dimensions, did not directly bear on his fitness for office in the way the resulting coverage implied. Matt Bai’s 2014 book “All the Truth Is Out” revisited the episode and argued that the Hart scandal marked the moment American political journalism permanently crossed from covering public affairs to covering private life. Hart himself has discussed the events with considerable candor in interviews, acknowledging the mistakes while questioning the media response.
