Word: hartely
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...disintegration of Gary Hart's candidacy left a void where the structure of the nomination contest should be. Though Hart had been a weak leader of the pack -- short of deeply committed supporters and ready campaign cash -- his place at the top dictated the shape of the race. Each of the seven other Democrats had to strive to become Hart's chief rival in the winter carnival of early caucuses and primaries...
...tests of strength. "There is no mountain to climb, no way for one of them to show off," says Bob Strauss, the former Democratic chairman who reigns as party sage. Says John White, another chairman emeritus: "The campaign goes back to ground zero." Polls taken last week, just after Hart's final agony became public, demonstrated why some skeptics call the active contenders the Seven Dwarfs. In Iowa the Des Moines Register survey of Democrats showed that the only real beneficiary was "undecided," which went up twelve points while Hart lost nine. The other seven who have been campaigning there...
...SOME sense our reaction is expectable. There is nothing more exhilirating than knowing that mighty politicians are mortals of flesh, that Gary Hart lusts after women just like the guy next door. Moreover, adultery touches our lives in a way that raping and pillaging does not. We know what it means to have a lover or spouse, and we must constantly confront the question of sexual fidelity. Not too many of us need to worry about guerilla warfare, on the other hand...
...respectable is not necessarily the healthy. It is bad enough that Hart's personal life has captured our attention in the way that it has. It is far worse that nothing else can concern us in the same way. Richard Secord's joking reminder to the committee investigating the Iran-Contra scandal that at least he was not on Bimini is a sad indication of our citizenry's misplaced priorities. It reminds us that most Americans would prefer a president who supports the endless murder of the innocent to a president who commits adultery...
...hundred and fifty years ago Tocqueville warned the world that Americans were in danger of becoming too preoccupied with their personal affairs at the expense of commitment to civil and political causes. The Hart scandal presents a cruel twist on Tocqueville's prescient forecast. It seems now that the only political issues that concern us are those that relate to our personal lives. If it can't happen to us, if we don't see it on the daytime soaps, then it simply doesn't matter. We truly have reached a sad state of affairs when we adopt so narrow...