Word: tripping
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...front-page story claiming that Hart had spent most of the weekend with a comely blond, a part-time actress named Donna Rice, 29, whose half-clad modeling photos soon graced newsstands across the country. Hart was forced to concede that he had also taken an overnight boat trip from Miami to Bimini with Rice and two other people on a yacht called Monkey Business. But the final blow came when a Washington Post reporter called campaign officials midweek with evidence of a recent liaison between Hart and a Washington woman. The threat of further revelations prompted Hart...
...chance and encountered Hart. She told the former Senator, "You probably don't remember, but I met you at Aspen." Hart admits he asked for Rice's phone number, and the next day, she says, he called to invite her to accompany him and Broadhurst on a daylong boat trip...
Hart's original account of the boat trip was troublesomely vague. In response to questions, Hart claimed that Broadhurst had invited "two or three friends" to join them. Their destination was Bimini, 50 miles from Miami, where Broadhurst's own boat had undergone repairs. Both Hart and Rice insisted the only reason the party stayed overnight in Bimini was that the customs office was closed. But the Miami Herald reported that Monkey Business cleared Bahamian customs on arriving, shortly before dusk. And according to Bahamian authorities, American pleasure boats are not required to clear customs upon departure. The sleeping arrangements...
...trip was only mentioned in passing in the initial Miami Herald story. But the image of two married men on an overnight boat trip to Bimini with two attractive young women did as much to damage Hart's credibility as the Herald's original charges. In the weeks after Bimini, both Hart and Rice acknowledge, they talked six or seven times by phone. Hart at first characterized the conversations as "casual, political" and later claimed they were primarily to discuss the bit-part actress's fund-raising efforts in the entertainment industry. The schedule for the Washington weekend was ostensibly...
Could Hart have survived the original story and the almost inevitable discovery of the details of the Bimini trip? Probably not. Hart's cool, cerebral style left him without the reservoir of intense supporters that has allowed other politicians to ride out more serious scandals. His towering strength in the polls was in part a reflection of his high name recognition and the weakness of his opposition. With no sizable assets of his own and still saddled with $1.3 million in debts from his 1984 race, Hart found raising money to be a chore even at the best of times...