WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.220 I want you to picture a specific image. It's 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:06.000 arguably one of the most famous or maybe infamous 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:09.419 images in American political history. A man in 00:00:09.419 --> 00:00:11.919 a T -shirt, wearing sunglasses, sitting on a 00:00:11.919 --> 00:00:15.119 dock. Maybe there's a boat involved. And the 00:00:15.119 --> 00:00:17.940 name of that boat is monkey business. It's the 00:00:17.940 --> 00:00:21.010 punchline that defined a whole decade. I mean, 00:00:21.030 --> 00:00:22.850 if you stop someone on the street and say, Gary 00:00:22.850 --> 00:00:24.949 Hart, that is the immediate association. That's 00:00:24.949 --> 00:00:27.250 it. The blonde woman, the boat, the scandal, 00:00:27.410 --> 00:00:29.989 the, you know, the total fall from grace. Right. 00:00:30.089 --> 00:00:32.049 It's the moment political journalism just turned 00:00:32.049 --> 00:00:33.329 into something, I don't know, something different. 00:00:33.810 --> 00:00:36.950 But here is the paradox. And it is a really jarring 00:00:36.950 --> 00:00:39.909 one. If you leave that dock and fast forward 00:00:39.909 --> 00:00:42.590 to the first week of September. 2001, specifically 00:00:42.590 --> 00:00:45.590 September 6th, you find that same man, the punchline, 00:00:45.670 --> 00:00:47.490 sitting in a meeting with a national security 00:00:47.490 --> 00:00:50.229 advisor of the United States. And he isn't talking 00:00:50.229 --> 00:00:53.450 about scandals. He's predicting with like a terrifying 00:00:53.450 --> 00:00:56.429 specificity that a massive terrorist attack is 00:00:56.429 --> 00:00:58.710 about to happen on U .S. soil. It is one of those 00:00:58.710 --> 00:01:00.829 historical what -ifs that just keeps you up at 00:01:00.829 --> 00:01:04.189 night. You have a man who was, well, arguably 00:01:04.189 --> 00:01:06.569 the most forward -thinking political strategist 00:01:06.569 --> 00:01:09.590 of his generation, completely sidelined by a 00:01:09.590 --> 00:01:12.329 sex scandal. Completely. And there he is trying 00:01:12.329 --> 00:01:14.390 to warn the government about 9 -11 literally 00:01:14.390 --> 00:01:16.969 five days before it happened. So today we're 00:01:16.969 --> 00:01:19.390 doing a deep dive into the life and career of 00:01:19.390 --> 00:01:23.400 Gary Hart. And the mission here is. Quite specific. 00:01:23.540 --> 00:01:25.959 We aren't here to just rehash the gossip for 00:01:25.959 --> 00:01:28.340 the sake of gossip. We have a massive stack of 00:01:28.340 --> 00:01:30.920 sources here. Senate records, biographical files, 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:33.359 declassified commission reports. We're going 00:01:33.359 --> 00:01:35.939 to unpack how a farm boy from Kansas became the 00:01:35.939 --> 00:01:39.319 Atari Democrat, analyze the exact timeline of 00:01:39.319 --> 00:01:41.180 the scandal that destroyed him because the popular 00:01:41.180 --> 00:01:43.620 story is actually wrong, and look at those warnings 00:01:43.620 --> 00:01:46.159 he gave in 2001. And I think the key here is 00:01:46.159 --> 00:01:48.040 to view Hart not just as a failed politician, 00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:50.420 but as a case study in how American politics 00:01:50.420 --> 00:01:52.719 has evolved. He really bridges the gap. I mean, 00:01:52.719 --> 00:01:55.319 he started in the era of smoke filled rooms and 00:01:55.319 --> 00:01:58.620 he ended up as the first casualty of the 24 hour 00:01:58.620 --> 00:02:01.560 news cycle. He's patient zero. He is patient 00:02:01.560 --> 00:02:04.219 zero for modern political media. Absolutely. 00:02:04.340 --> 00:02:07.540 He didn't just see the rules change. In a lot 00:02:07.540 --> 00:02:09.800 of ways, he. broke the old rules and kind of 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:12.180 forced the new ones into existence. Yeah. But 00:02:12.180 --> 00:02:14.060 to understand the fall, we have to understand 00:02:14.060 --> 00:02:16.819 the ascent. And looking at his early life, the 00:02:16.819 --> 00:02:18.259 first thing that struck me in the biographical 00:02:18.259 --> 00:02:21.000 data is that Gary Hart didn't actually exist 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:23.740 for the first 25 years of his life. No, he didn't. 00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:26.460 He was born Gary Warren Hartpence. Hartpence. 00:02:26.599 --> 00:02:29.360 That's a mouthful. It is. In Ottawa, Kansas, 00:02:29.659 --> 00:02:32.259 his father was a farm equipment salesman. It 00:02:32.259 --> 00:02:35.219 was a pretty modest, you know, very religious 00:02:35.219 --> 00:02:38.419 upbringing in the heartland. That name change 00:02:38.419 --> 00:02:41.419 is really the first clue to his character. It 00:02:41.419 --> 00:02:45.639 wasn't some Hollywood stage name. In 1961, Gary 00:02:45.639 --> 00:02:47.580 and his father actually went to the courthouse 00:02:47.580 --> 00:02:49.599 together to change the family name. Together. 00:02:49.740 --> 00:02:51.919 That's interesting. Yeah. And the reasoning they 00:02:51.919 --> 00:02:54.539 gave was just incredibly pragmatic. Hart is just 00:02:54.539 --> 00:02:56.659 easier to remember and spell than Hartpence. 00:02:56.860 --> 00:02:58.680 Which is true from a branding perspective. I 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:01.409 mean, Senator Hartpence sounds a bit. A little 00:03:01.409 --> 00:03:04.430 stuffy, yeah. But it does suggest a certain level 00:03:04.430 --> 00:03:07.009 of calculation, doesn't it? Even at a young age, 00:03:07.169 --> 00:03:09.370 this idea of streamlining your own identity. 00:03:09.789 --> 00:03:12.409 Absolutely. It speaks to a desire for efficiency. 00:03:12.729 --> 00:03:15.270 And you see that pivot in his education as well. 00:03:15.430 --> 00:03:17.770 He went to Southern Nazarene University, a very 00:03:17.770 --> 00:03:20.069 strict religious school. And then he goes on 00:03:20.069 --> 00:03:22.210 to Yale Divinity School. So he was on a track 00:03:22.210 --> 00:03:25.110 to become a minister or a philosopher. Right. 00:03:25.169 --> 00:03:28.599 He wanted to save souls. But then... Almost abruptly, 00:03:28.780 --> 00:03:32.379 he graduates in 1961 and literally walks across 00:03:32.379 --> 00:03:35.199 the campus to enroll in Yale Law School. The 00:03:35.199 --> 00:03:37.680 shift from the laws of God. To the laws of men. 00:03:37.819 --> 00:03:40.419 Exactly. And while the sources don't give us, 00:03:40.419 --> 00:03:42.400 you know, a diary entry explaining the exact 00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:44.860 moment of the decision, the trajectory shifts 00:03:44.860 --> 00:03:47.300 from spiritual leadership to practical systemic 00:03:47.300 --> 00:03:49.560 leadership. He goes to work for the Department 00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:51.479 of Justice, then the Department of the Interior. 00:03:51.639 --> 00:03:53.659 Pretty standard stuff. But the moment where he 00:03:53.659 --> 00:03:56.159 stops being a bureaucrat and starts being a political 00:03:56.159 --> 00:03:59.479 architect is 1972. The George McGovern campaign. 00:04:00.139 --> 00:04:02.900 Now, historically, McGovern is, of course, remembered 00:04:02.900 --> 00:04:05.680 for losing to Nixon in one of the biggest landslides 00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:09.340 ever. A total wipeout. But the primary campaign, 00:04:09.500 --> 00:04:11.740 that was something else entirely. And Hart was 00:04:11.740 --> 00:04:13.520 the campaign director. This is where we have 00:04:13.520 --> 00:04:15.340 to get into the weeds a little bit of how American 00:04:15.340 --> 00:04:17.519 politics actually works, because Hart effectively 00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:21.050 hacked the system. He really did. Before 1972, 00:04:21.569 --> 00:04:24.029 the Democratic nominee was largely chosen by 00:04:24.029 --> 00:04:26.490 party bosses. You know, the mayor dailies of 00:04:26.490 --> 00:04:28.490 the world. The guys in the smoke -filled rooms. 00:04:28.769 --> 00:04:32.730 Exactly. But after the... Just the chaos of the 00:04:32.730 --> 00:04:36.310 1968 convention in Chicago, the party opened 00:04:36.310 --> 00:04:39.089 up the process. They created this new, really 00:04:39.089 --> 00:04:42.110 complex system of primaries and caucuses. And 00:04:42.110 --> 00:04:44.269 most of the old guard, the establishment, they 00:04:44.269 --> 00:04:46.629 didn't really understand the new rulebook. Correct. 00:04:46.769 --> 00:04:49.149 But Gary Hart and his colleague Rick Stearns 00:04:49.149 --> 00:04:51.490 did. They looked at the new rules and treated 00:04:51.490 --> 00:04:54.300 them like a logic puzzle. They realized that 00:04:54.300 --> 00:04:57.120 while all the big names, Muskie, Humphrey, were 00:04:57.120 --> 00:04:59.439 fighting over the expensive primary states with 00:04:59.439 --> 00:05:01.939 TV ads and big rallies. Spending all the money. 00:05:02.060 --> 00:05:04.360 There were 28 states that held caucuses. OK, 00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:06.459 so for you, the listener who might not know, 00:05:06.579 --> 00:05:08.660 what is the functional difference there that 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:11.120 Hart was able to exploit? It's a great question. 00:05:11.339 --> 00:05:14.600 A primary is simple voting. You walk in, you 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:17.000 pull a lever or fill out a bubble, you leave. 00:05:17.180 --> 00:05:20.759 A caucus is a meeting. It's a commitment. It's 00:05:20.759 --> 00:05:23.040 a huge commitment. It requires neighbors talking 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:26.079 to neighbors in a school gym for hours. It requires 00:05:26.079 --> 00:05:30.050 time. And most importantly, organization. Hart 00:05:30.050 --> 00:05:32.930 realized that caucuses were cheap in terms of 00:05:32.930 --> 00:05:35.389 dollars, but really expensive in terms of effort. 00:05:35.569 --> 00:05:38.750 So he built a grassroots army. A huge one. They 00:05:38.750 --> 00:05:41.490 focused on these completely ignored states, organizing 00:05:41.490 --> 00:05:44.069 thousands of volunteers to show up at these meetings 00:05:44.069 --> 00:05:47.209 on a Tuesday night in, you know, Iowa or Nebraska. 00:05:47.689 --> 00:05:50.329 It was a moneyball approach to politics way before 00:05:50.329 --> 00:05:53.139 that term existed. They were looking for undervalued 00:05:53.139 --> 00:05:55.540 assets on the political map. Precisely. And it 00:05:55.540 --> 00:05:58.300 worked. McGovern just swept the nomination, shocking 00:05:58.300 --> 00:06:00.740 the entire establishment. Now, the general election 00:06:00.740 --> 00:06:03.139 was a disaster. We know that. But inside the 00:06:03.139 --> 00:06:05.259 party, Gary Hart walked away with this reputation 00:06:05.259 --> 00:06:08.240 as a whiz kid. He was the guy who saw the Matrix. 00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:10.439 And he didn't waste any time cashing in on that 00:06:10.439 --> 00:06:12.860 reputation. Yeah. Just two years later, 1974, 00:06:13.519 --> 00:06:15.939 he moves to Colorado and runs for the U .S. Senate. 00:06:16.269 --> 00:06:19.269 And his timing was impeccable. I mean, 1974 is 00:06:19.269 --> 00:06:21.610 the year of Watergate. Of course. The Republican 00:06:21.610 --> 00:06:24.430 brand was just radioactive. Hart ran against 00:06:24.430 --> 00:06:26.589 an incumbent, Peter Dominick, who had not only 00:06:26.589 --> 00:06:28.490 supported Nixon, but was also suffering from 00:06:28.490 --> 00:06:30.970 some health issues. So Hart runs as the fresh 00:06:30.970 --> 00:06:33.529 face, the outsider, the reformer. And he wins 00:06:33.529 --> 00:06:37.569 in a landslide 57 .2 percent of the vote. Huge 00:06:37.569 --> 00:06:40.829 margin. So now he is Senator Hart. And looking 00:06:40.829 --> 00:06:43.410 at his Senate record in the provided files, he 00:06:43.410 --> 00:06:45.860 wasn't a backbencher. He seemed to gravitate 00:06:45.860 --> 00:06:48.579 toward the heavy, complex committees almost immediately. 00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:51.399 Oh, he was incredibly active. He landed a seat 00:06:51.399 --> 00:06:53.379 on the Church Committee. For those not familiar 00:06:53.379 --> 00:06:55.540 with 70s history, the Church Committee was a 00:06:55.540 --> 00:06:58.819 massive, massive investigation into the intelligence 00:06:58.819 --> 00:07:01.519 abuses of the CIA, the NSA, the FBI. This was 00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:04.079 really dark stuff. Oh, yeah. They were looking 00:07:04.079 --> 00:07:07.160 into assassination plots, illegal domestic surveillance 00:07:07.160 --> 00:07:10.240 on anti -war protesters. This is where Hart gets 00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:12.480 his first deep exposure to the national security 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:15.500 apparatus, and it clearly shapes him. And then 00:07:15.500 --> 00:07:17.500 there's the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. 00:07:18.259 --> 00:07:20.199 There's a detail in the source material that 00:07:20.199 --> 00:07:23.040 I found pretty wild. He wasn't just reading reports 00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:25.560 about the nuclear meltdown. Yeah. He was physically 00:07:25.560 --> 00:07:27.730 there. He was the chairman of the Subcommittee 00:07:27.730 --> 00:07:30.910 on Nuclear Regulation. So when the reactor accident 00:07:30.910 --> 00:07:33.589 happened, he didn't manage it from a desk in 00:07:33.589 --> 00:07:36.509 D .C. No. He flew to Pennsylvania and went up 00:07:36.509 --> 00:07:38.930 in an Army helicopter directly over the reactor 00:07:38.930 --> 00:07:41.910 to assess the situation while the crisis was 00:07:41.910 --> 00:07:43.949 still unfolding. That's incredible. It showed 00:07:43.949 --> 00:07:46.269 a kind of physical courage and a hands -on style 00:07:46.269 --> 00:07:49.889 that really separated him from the typical lawyer 00:07:49.889 --> 00:07:52.829 -politician archetype. But the label that really 00:07:52.829 --> 00:07:54.550 came to define him, and the one that I think 00:07:54.550 --> 00:07:57.100 is most interesting for us, to unpack is Atari 00:07:57.100 --> 00:08:00.180 Democrat. Right. Sounds so retro now, like calling 00:08:00.180 --> 00:08:02.500 someone a Betamax Republican. Right. But in the 00:08:02.500 --> 00:08:04.980 context of the early 80s, what was he trying 00:08:04.980 --> 00:08:07.399 to signal with that term? It was a declaration 00:08:07.399 --> 00:08:09.879 of a new kind of liberalism. You have to remember, 00:08:10.019 --> 00:08:12.519 the Democratic Party of the 1970s and 80s was 00:08:12.519 --> 00:08:15.180 still built on the New Deal coalition. Heavy 00:08:15.180 --> 00:08:18.040 industry, big labor unions, protectionism. The 00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:21.360 Rust Belt. The Rust Belt, exactly. Hart looked 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:23.579 at the world and saw the information age coming. 00:08:24.569 --> 00:08:27.649 Atari Democrat meant a moderate who believed 00:08:27.649 --> 00:08:29.629 the government should partner with the tech sector, 00:08:29.810 --> 00:08:32.889 encourage entrepreneurship and move away from 00:08:32.889 --> 00:08:35.889 that old industrial reliance. It was about shifting 00:08:35.889 --> 00:08:39.250 the focus from steel mills to silicon ships. 00:08:39.659 --> 00:08:42.279 That's the perfect way to put it. And he backed 00:08:42.279 --> 00:08:45.039 it up with legislation. He co -sponsored the 00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:48.519 Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984. What 00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:50.519 did that do? Why was that a big deal? Well, it 00:08:50.519 --> 00:08:53.159 was a landmark bill. Before this, you could basically 00:08:53.159 --> 00:08:56.000 take a computer chip, photograph the layout of 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:57.700 the transistors, what they call the mask work, 00:08:57.840 --> 00:09:00.240 and just clone it. There was no intellectual 00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:02.860 property protection for the physical design of 00:09:02.860 --> 00:09:05.240 a chip. So it was the Wild West for tech. Totally. 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:08.580 And Hart helped create a new category of IP law. 00:09:08.940 --> 00:09:11.179 specifically to protect Silicon Valley from foreign 00:09:11.179 --> 00:09:14.000 copycats. He was thinking about this stuff years 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:16.379 before most people in Washington even knew what 00:09:16.379 --> 00:09:18.980 a microchip was. So he's identifying the economic 00:09:18.980 --> 00:09:21.700 future of the country. He's a military reformer 00:09:21.700 --> 00:09:24.399 pushing for smaller, more mobile units rather 00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:26.799 than massive battleships. He's checking all these 00:09:26.799 --> 00:09:30.700 visionary boxes. But politically, he almost flamed 00:09:30.700 --> 00:09:34.169 out in 1980. Oh, it was a very close call. 1980 00:09:34.169 --> 00:09:37.090 was the Reagan revolution. Republicans swept 00:09:37.090 --> 00:09:40.570 the country. Hart barely, and I mean barely, 00:09:40.610 --> 00:09:42.669 held onto a seat in Colorado. How close was it? 00:09:42.769 --> 00:09:46.409 He won by roughly 1%, just over 19 ,000 votes. 00:09:46.750 --> 00:09:49.269 His opponent, Mary Estill Buchanan, attacked 00:09:49.269 --> 00:09:52.269 him as a McGovernate carpetbagger, trying to 00:09:52.269 --> 00:09:54.529 tie him to the old left, saying he was too liberal 00:09:54.529 --> 00:09:56.769 for Colorado. And what was the specific attack 00:09:56.769 --> 00:09:59.009 line? A lot of it centered on his support for 00:09:59.009 --> 00:10:01.230 the Panama Canal treaties, which was seen as 00:10:01.230 --> 00:10:03.250 giving away the canal. It was a very effective 00:10:03.250 --> 00:10:05.610 conservative talking point at the time. So that 00:10:05.610 --> 00:10:08.690 close call spooked him. It had to. He realized 00:10:08.690 --> 00:10:10.389 that if he wanted to be president, he couldn't 00:10:10.389 --> 00:10:13.570 just be the smart guy or the ideas guy. He needed 00:10:13.570 --> 00:10:15.629 to be the tough guy, too. Which brings us to 00:10:15.629 --> 00:10:18.470 a very strange chapter in his biography, The 00:10:18.470 --> 00:10:21.789 Naval Reserve. This feels like a subplot that 00:10:21.789 --> 00:10:23.649 a scriptwriter would add to make a character 00:10:23.649 --> 00:10:26.450 more complex. But in real life, it just seems... 00:10:26.750 --> 00:10:29.710 Odd. It is very peculiar. Why does a sitting 00:10:29.710 --> 00:10:33.070 United States senator in his 40s decide to join 00:10:33.070 --> 00:10:35.950 the Navy? It's a great question. The stated reason, 00:10:36.169 --> 00:10:38.750 which Hart has always maintained, is that he 00:10:38.750 --> 00:10:41.350 didn't feel comfortable voting on military matters, 00:10:41.610 --> 00:10:44.450 specifically the potential for conflict in the 00:10:44.450 --> 00:10:46.990 Persian Gulf, without understanding the military 00:10:46.990 --> 00:10:49.590 from the inside. So he was saying, I don't want 00:10:49.590 --> 00:10:51.649 to send young men to war if I haven't served. 00:10:51.730 --> 00:10:53.509 That was the line. He said he didn't want to 00:10:53.509 --> 00:10:55.470 send young men to die in a service he didn't 00:10:55.470 --> 00:10:58.200 understand. which sounds noble on paper. But 00:10:58.200 --> 00:11:00.399 the critics at the time didn't buy it. Not for 00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:03.320 a second. Columnists like Evans and Novak just 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:05.559 savaged him for it. They called it clearing the 00:11:05.559 --> 00:11:08.559 biographical decks. What does that mean? Well, 00:11:08.580 --> 00:11:10.159 you have to look at the landscape of the time. 00:11:10.980 --> 00:11:15.539 JFK, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H .W. 00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:18.519 Bush, they all had military service records. 00:11:19.019 --> 00:11:21.539 It was practically a prerequisite for the presidency. 00:11:21.980 --> 00:11:24.960 Hart was the odd man out. So the cynical view 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:26.879 is that he was just checking a box on his resume 00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:29.480 for a future presidential run. And the application 00:11:29.480 --> 00:11:32.100 process itself was riddled with irregularities. 00:11:32.120 --> 00:11:34.899 Oh, it was messy. He was over the age limit for 00:11:34.899 --> 00:11:37.500 a commission. He was, I think, 43 at the time. 00:11:37.559 --> 00:11:40.779 He had no prior experience. And in what becomes 00:11:40.779 --> 00:11:43.320 a recurring theme for Hart, there were discrepancies 00:11:43.320 --> 00:11:45.519 on his forms regarding his birth date. He got 00:11:45.519 --> 00:11:47.990 his own birthday wrong. Again, it happened more 00:11:47.990 --> 00:11:50.309 than once in public documents. It added to this 00:11:50.309 --> 00:11:53.070 low -level hum of suspicion that he was constantly 00:11:53.070 --> 00:11:55.830 reinventing himself, you know, shaving a year 00:11:55.830 --> 00:11:58.230 off here or there. So how did he get in? He got 00:11:58.230 --> 00:12:00.269 a waiver from the Secretary of the Navy, Edward 00:12:00.269 --> 00:12:03.049 Hidalgo. But here is a fascinating connection. 00:12:03.490 --> 00:12:06.009 The Senate liaison for the Navy who helped smooth 00:12:06.009 --> 00:12:09.009 this whole process over was none other than John 00:12:09.009 --> 00:12:12.240 McCain. No way. That is a wild connection. They 00:12:12.240 --> 00:12:13.659 actually became friends through the process. 00:12:14.120 --> 00:12:15.980 Hart was commissioned as a lieutenant junior 00:12:15.980 --> 00:12:18.620 grade. He apparently wanted a higher rank, but 00:12:18.620 --> 00:12:21.299 the Navy held firm that he had no experience. 00:12:21.700 --> 00:12:23.899 He did his active duty tours, but politically 00:12:23.899 --> 00:12:26.460 it was a wash. It just looked too calculated 00:12:26.460 --> 00:12:28.679 to a lot of people. But despite the cynicism, 00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:32.179 he gears up for the big show, 1984. He decides 00:12:32.179 --> 00:12:34.580 to run for president. And this is really the 00:12:34.580 --> 00:12:36.740 rehearsal for the tragedy that comes later. It 00:12:36.740 --> 00:12:39.879 really is. 1984 is where he proves he's a heavyweight. 00:12:39.940 --> 00:12:43.570 He announces early. in February of 1983, and 00:12:43.570 --> 00:12:47.590 he is polling at an asterisk, like 1%. A total 00:12:47.590 --> 00:12:49.549 nobody on the national state. Completely. He 00:12:49.549 --> 00:12:51.429 is running against Walter Mondale, the former 00:12:51.429 --> 00:12:53.230 vice president and the embodiment of the Democratic 00:12:53.230 --> 00:12:56.110 establishment, and John Glenn, an American hero 00:12:56.110 --> 00:12:59.259 and astronaut. Hart is a nobody outside of Colorado 00:12:59.259 --> 00:13:01.899 and D .C. So he goes back to the 1972 McGovern 00:13:01.899 --> 00:13:04.820 playbook. He does. He realizes he can't outspend 00:13:04.820 --> 00:13:06.840 Mondale, so he decides to outwork him in the 00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:09.919 early states. He goes to New Hampshire way, way 00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:12.279 before anyone else. He campaigns on this theme 00:13:12.279 --> 00:13:15.360 of new ideas. That was the slogan. It was a brilliant 00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:18.360 frame. Mondale was the past. Hart was the future. 00:13:18.679 --> 00:13:22.019 And it worked. He won New Hampshire by 10 points. 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:24.240 I mean, that is a political earthquake. It was 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:27.340 a massive upset. Suddenly, Gary Hart is on the 00:13:27.340 --> 00:13:29.460 cover of Time and Newsweek. He's being called 00:13:29.460 --> 00:13:33.320 the new JFK. He has the hair, the look, the Atari 00:13:33.320 --> 00:13:36.840 platform. Mondale is reeling. The entire establishment 00:13:36.840 --> 00:13:39.259 is terrified. But then we have one of the most 00:13:39.259 --> 00:13:41.700 famous moments in debate history, the where's 00:13:41.700 --> 00:13:44.899 the beef moment. I think people know the punchline, 00:13:44.980 --> 00:13:47.360 but let's analyze why it was so incredibly effective. 00:13:47.679 --> 00:13:50.100 It's a perfect case study in political jujitsu. 00:13:50.539 --> 00:13:52.860 Mondale was being attacked as old and boring. 00:13:53.100 --> 00:13:56.690 Hart was new ideas. But during a debate, Mondale 00:13:56.690 --> 00:13:59.450 turns to Hart and uses a slogan from a hugely 00:13:59.450 --> 00:14:01.929 popular Wendy's hamburger commercial. Everyone 00:14:01.929 --> 00:14:03.909 knew this ad. Oh, yeah. It was iconic. And he 00:14:03.909 --> 00:14:05.990 said, when I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded 00:14:05.990 --> 00:14:08.750 of that ad. Where's the beef? The audience just 00:14:08.750 --> 00:14:12.049 erupted. They did. But the reason it worked wasn't 00:14:12.049 --> 00:14:14.070 just because it was a funny, timely reference. 00:14:14.509 --> 00:14:18.049 It struck at Hart's biggest vulnerability. People 00:14:18.049 --> 00:14:20.789 thought he was cool. He was aloof. He was intellectual. 00:14:21.169 --> 00:14:23.629 But they weren't sure there was any real substance 00:14:23.629 --> 00:14:27.090 behind the new ideas slogan. So Mondale was saying, 00:14:27.190 --> 00:14:29.929 this guy is all packaging. He's all sizzle and 00:14:29.929 --> 00:14:32.929 no steak. Exactly. It halted Hart's momentum 00:14:32.929 --> 00:14:36.250 cold. It gave the media and the voters a simple, 00:14:36.309 --> 00:14:39.289 powerful narrative to latch on to. Hart fought 00:14:39.289 --> 00:14:41.389 all the way to the convention in San Francisco, 00:14:41.570 --> 00:14:44.629 but Mondale had the delegates by then. He did, 00:14:44.750 --> 00:14:46.970 but it was the last time a nomination was truly 00:14:46.970 --> 00:14:49.909 contested that late into the game, and Hart went 00:14:49.909 --> 00:14:52.419 out swinging. He told the convention, This is 00:14:52.419 --> 00:14:54.580 one heart you will not leave in San Francisco. 00:14:54.779 --> 00:14:56.500 That's a great line. It was a promise. He was 00:14:56.500 --> 00:14:58.919 telling the world, I'll be back in 1988 and I'm 00:14:58.919 --> 00:15:00.899 going to win this time. And for three years, 00:15:01.019 --> 00:15:03.919 that seemed inevitable. Going into the 1988 cycle, 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:06.279 he wasn't just a frontrunner. He was the guy. 00:15:06.519 --> 00:15:08.759 Oh, he was the prohibitive favorite. He was pulling 00:15:08.759 --> 00:15:11.799 double digits ahead of everyone. The path was 00:15:11.799 --> 00:15:14.279 completely clear for him to be the next president 00:15:14.279 --> 00:15:16.879 of the United States. But there was noise in 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:20.269 the background. Rumors. The womanizing rumors. 00:15:20.929 --> 00:15:23.870 It was something of an open secret in D .C. that 00:15:23.870 --> 00:15:26.769 Hart had a complex marriage. He and his wife 00:15:26.769 --> 00:15:29.990 Lee had separated twice in 79 and 81, though 00:15:29.990 --> 00:15:32.070 they always reconciled. He called it a midlife 00:15:32.070 --> 00:15:35.129 crisis, right? He did. But there were constant 00:15:35.129 --> 00:15:38.049 whispers about affairs, about him not being, 00:15:38.190 --> 00:15:40.970 you know, a faithful husband. And this brings 00:15:40.970 --> 00:15:42.649 us to the scandal. And this is where we need 00:15:42.649 --> 00:15:44.830 to be very precise, because the popular memory 00:15:44.830 --> 00:15:47.889 of this event is actually wrong. The story everyone 00:15:47.889 --> 00:15:52.049 knows is Hart arrogantly taunted the press, geared 00:15:52.049 --> 00:15:54.549 them to follow him. So they did. And they caught 00:15:54.549 --> 00:15:56.950 him. That is the myth. It's a very convenient 00:15:56.950 --> 00:15:58.950 narrative because it makes the whole scandal 00:15:58.950 --> 00:16:01.629 Hart's fault for being arrogant. But the timeline 00:16:01.629 --> 00:16:03.690 and the sources, it tells a very different story. 00:16:03.889 --> 00:16:05.870 OK, let's break down that timeline. The felon's 00:16:05.870 --> 00:16:08.250 quote is finding. Follow me around. I don't care 00:16:08.250 --> 00:16:10.330 if anybody wants to put a tail on me. Go ahead. 00:16:10.370 --> 00:16:13.059 They'll be very bored. Right. He gave that quote 00:16:13.059 --> 00:16:15.320 to E .J. Dionne of the New York Times for a magazine 00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:18.000 piece. But, and this is absolutely crucial, that 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:19.940 interview had not been published yet when the 00:16:19.940 --> 00:16:22.679 Miami Herald began their investigation. So the 00:16:22.679 --> 00:16:24.559 Herald wasn't accepting some kind of challenge? 00:16:24.779 --> 00:16:28.620 No. The Herald received an anonymous tip. A phone 00:16:28.620 --> 00:16:30.759 call from a woman who claimed her friend was 00:16:30.759 --> 00:16:32.840 having an affair with Hart and that she even 00:16:32.840 --> 00:16:36.179 had photos. So the Herald flew a team to D .C. 00:16:36.259 --> 00:16:39.539 and staked out his townhouse based entirely on 00:16:39.539 --> 00:16:42.529 that tip. Not on a dare. And the quote from The 00:16:42.529 --> 00:16:46.149 Times. Here's the crazy part. The quote appeared 00:16:46.149 --> 00:16:48.870 in The New York Times Magazine on Sunday, May 00:16:48.870 --> 00:16:52.389 3rd. That was the exact same day that the Miami 00:16:52.389 --> 00:16:55.210 Herald published its story about the stakeout. 00:16:55.269 --> 00:16:58.230 Oh, wow. What a collision. It was a cosmic collision 00:16:58.230 --> 00:17:01.250 of bad timing. It made Hart look incredibly hubristic, 00:17:01.250 --> 00:17:03.570 as if he was daring them while he was actively 00:17:03.570 --> 00:17:06.089 with Donna Rice. But the surveillance was already 00:17:06.089 --> 00:17:08.589 happening. The die was already cast. So let's 00:17:08.589 --> 00:17:11.230 talk about that weekend, May 1st and 2nd, 1987. 00:17:12.109 --> 00:17:14.549 The stakeout itself. It's just grim. You have 00:17:14.549 --> 00:17:16.710 these reporters sitting in rental cars watching 00:17:16.710 --> 00:17:18.769 the back door of a presidential candidate's home. 00:17:18.910 --> 00:17:21.410 They see a young woman, Donna Rice, coming and 00:17:21.410 --> 00:17:23.589 going with Hart's friend. Then they see her and 00:17:23.589 --> 00:17:25.869 Hart together. And on Saturday evening, they 00:17:25.869 --> 00:17:27.509 decide to confront him. In an alleyway. In an 00:17:27.509 --> 00:17:30.359 alley. Sounds like a movie. It really does. Hart 00:17:30.359 --> 00:17:32.799 is walking near his townhouse. The reporters 00:17:32.799 --> 00:17:35.700 literally surround him. It's chaotic. They start 00:17:35.700 --> 00:17:38.259 firing questions at him. Who is the woman in 00:17:38.259 --> 00:17:40.940 your house? Is she staying with you? Hart denied 00:17:40.940 --> 00:17:43.920 everything. He was agitated. He claimed he was 00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:46.619 being set up. But the optics were just fatal. 00:17:47.019 --> 00:17:49.559 The frontrunner for the presidency cornered in 00:17:49.559 --> 00:17:52.019 an alley trying to explain why a blonde model 00:17:52.019 --> 00:17:53.980 was in his house. It was over at that moment, 00:17:54.039 --> 00:17:56.640 really. The story breaks the next day. And the 00:17:56.640 --> 00:17:59.549 media environment. The sources describe it as 00:17:59.549 --> 00:18:01.769 a frenzy that had never been seen before. This 00:18:01.769 --> 00:18:03.970 was the Rubicon Crossing. Before this, there 00:18:03.970 --> 00:18:05.670 was sort of a gentleman's agreement in the press. 00:18:05.849 --> 00:18:07.470 There was. I mean, the press corps knew about 00:18:07.470 --> 00:18:10.130 FDR. They knew about JFK. They knew about LBJ. 00:18:10.470 --> 00:18:13.450 But they viewed it as private conduct that didn't 00:18:13.450 --> 00:18:16.170 impact their ability to govern. With Hart, the 00:18:16.170 --> 00:18:18.329 character issue became the dominant and really 00:18:18.329 --> 00:18:21.769 the only story. The wall between public and private 00:18:21.769 --> 00:18:25.000 was demolished. It was bulldozed. Overnight, 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:27.240 the campaign turned from a debate about policy 00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:29.759 into a character inquisition. The Washington 00:18:29.759 --> 00:18:32.420 Post was preparing a story about another woman 00:18:32.420 --> 00:18:34.420 Hart had dated while he was legally separated 00:18:34.420 --> 00:18:38.140 from his wife. The pressure was just unbearable. 00:18:38.359 --> 00:18:41.539 And on May 8th, just a week after the story broke, 00:18:41.740 --> 00:18:44.359 he suspended his campaign. Just like that, it 00:18:44.359 --> 00:18:47.630 was over. And his withdrawal speech... Reading 00:18:47.630 --> 00:18:50.329 the transcript of it now, it's not apologetic, 00:18:50.349 --> 00:18:53.670 it's angry. It is. It's defiant. He felt he was 00:18:53.670 --> 00:18:55.769 the victim of a media that had completely lost 00:18:55.769 --> 00:18:59.289 its way. He said, and this is a quote, I watched 00:18:59.289 --> 00:19:02.490 journalists become animals, literally. But the 00:19:02.490 --> 00:19:04.970 most haunting part is when he paraphrased Thomas 00:19:04.970 --> 00:19:07.900 Jefferson. What did he say? He said, I tremble 00:19:07.900 --> 00:19:10.180 for my country when I think we may, in fact, 00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:12.380 get the kind of leaders we deserve. That is a 00:19:12.380 --> 00:19:14.779 heavy statement. He was warning us. He was saying, 00:19:14.900 --> 00:19:17.420 if you make politics about peeping through keyholes 00:19:17.420 --> 00:19:19.940 and staking out people's homes, serious people 00:19:19.940 --> 00:19:22.160 with complex lives will stop running for office. 00:19:22.380 --> 00:19:24.299 And you'll be left with what? You're going to 00:19:24.299 --> 00:19:25.900 be left with people who are simply better at 00:19:25.900 --> 00:19:28.160 hiding things or people who have no shame at 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:30.730 all. He also talked about this idea of static. 00:19:30.950 --> 00:19:34.349 Yes. He said that scandal creates static that 00:19:34.349 --> 00:19:37.809 drowns out the signal of real issues. And that 00:19:37.809 --> 00:19:40.609 concept becomes devastatingly, tragically relevant 00:19:40.609 --> 00:19:43.009 when we look at his post -political career. He 00:19:43.009 --> 00:19:45.470 did try to jump back in briefly in December of 00:19:45.470 --> 00:19:48.730 87, right? The Let the People Decide tour. He 00:19:48.730 --> 00:19:52.109 did. It was a bizarre, almost quixotic attempt 00:19:52.109 --> 00:19:55.470 to restart his campaign. He thought maybe the 00:19:55.470 --> 00:19:57.509 voters didn't care as much as the press did. 00:19:57.710 --> 00:19:59.710 He was wrong. He was wrong. He was a punchline 00:19:59.710 --> 00:20:02.569 by then. He polled terribly and dropped out again 00:20:02.569 --> 00:20:05.349 for good after Super Tuesday. His electoral career 00:20:05.349 --> 00:20:08.990 was dead. And usually in a biography, this is 00:20:08.990 --> 00:20:11.410 where the screen fades to black. The politician 00:20:11.410 --> 00:20:14.150 retires, maybe writes a memoir, plays golf. But 00:20:14.150 --> 00:20:16.410 for Gary Hart, this was arguably just the end 00:20:16.410 --> 00:20:17.930 of the first act. This is where the story gets 00:20:17.930 --> 00:20:20.660 really substantive. Hart didn't disappear into 00:20:20.660 --> 00:20:23.200 obscurity. He went to Oxford. He earned a doctorate 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:25.240 in politics. He completely reinvented himself 00:20:25.240 --> 00:20:27.960 again, this time as a serious scholar of national 00:20:27.960 --> 00:20:30.539 security. And this brings us to the late 90s. 00:20:30.859 --> 00:20:33.680 President Clinton commissions Hart, along with 00:20:33.680 --> 00:20:36.500 former Republican Senator Warren Rudman, to lead 00:20:36.500 --> 00:20:39.140 a major study on national security. But Hart 00:20:39.140 --> 00:20:41.599 Rudman... commission. And this wasn't some fluff 00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:43.900 assignment to keep a former politician busy. 00:20:44.079 --> 00:20:47.019 They spent nearly three years analyzing the changing 00:20:47.019 --> 00:20:49.839 global landscape after the Cold War. And their 00:20:49.839 --> 00:20:52.619 conclusion was stark. What did they find? They 00:20:52.619 --> 00:20:54.940 said that the era of American invulnerability 00:20:54.940 --> 00:20:57.319 was over. They concluded that the U .S. homeland 00:20:57.319 --> 00:21:00.180 was now a primary target. And they were specific 00:21:00.180 --> 00:21:02.700 about the nature of the threat. Extremely specific. 00:21:02.900 --> 00:21:05.000 They warned that a terrorist attack involving 00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:08.240 mass casualties would occur on U .S. soil. They 00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:10.680 explicitly stated it wasn't a matter of if, but 00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:13.319 when. They published their final report in early 00:21:13.319 --> 00:21:17.599 2001. So now we are in 2001. George W. Bush is 00:21:17.599 --> 00:21:19.940 president. The report is out there collecting 00:21:19.940 --> 00:21:22.779 dust on a shelf somewhere, I assume. But Hart 00:21:22.779 --> 00:21:24.660 didn't just file the report and walk away. He 00:21:24.660 --> 00:21:27.059 was actively sounding the alarm. He was. And 00:21:27.059 --> 00:21:29.359 this is where the timeline becomes just chilling. 00:21:29.500 --> 00:21:32.180 Let's look at the week before 9 -11. OK. September 00:21:32.180 --> 00:21:35.480 4th, 2001. Hart is in Montreal giving a speech. 00:21:35.779 --> 00:21:38.839 He publicly warns that within the next 25 years, 00:21:39.019 --> 00:21:42.480 a massive terrorist event will kill Americans 00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:45.200 on American soil. He is trying to get people 00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:48.809 to pay attention. And then September 6th. Five 00:21:48.809 --> 00:21:50.990 days before the attacks. This is the meeting 00:21:50.990 --> 00:21:53.529 that I think must haunt him. Hart goes to the 00:21:53.529 --> 00:21:55.490 White House to meet with Condoleezza Rice, the 00:21:55.490 --> 00:21:58.509 National Security Advisor. He is there specifically 00:21:58.509 --> 00:22:01.349 to urge the Bush administration to move faster 00:22:01.349 --> 00:22:03.150 on the Hart -Rudman Commission's recommendations. 00:22:03.730 --> 00:22:06.400 What did he tell her? Do we know? We do. He was 00:22:06.400 --> 00:22:09.400 blunt. He told her, you must move more quickly 00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:11.940 on homeland security. An attack is going to happen. 00:22:12.099 --> 00:22:13.400 He was trying to cut through the bureaucracy 00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:15.380 to light a fire under them. And the response. 00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:18.339 According to Hart and later reports, the administration 00:22:18.339 --> 00:22:20.799 was polite, but essentially dismissed the urgency. 00:22:21.140 --> 00:22:23.240 Their focus was elsewhere. They were looking 00:22:23.240 --> 00:22:25.440 at missile defense. They were looking at state 00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:28.680 actors like Iraq and China. The idea of a non 00:22:28.680 --> 00:22:31.539 -state actor using commercial planes as missiles. 00:22:31.880 --> 00:22:33.759 It just wasn't the frequency they were tuned 00:22:33.759 --> 00:22:36.240 into. It really brings us back to his warning 00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:40.099 about static, doesn't it? The scandal in 87 destroyed 00:22:40.099 --> 00:22:43.740 his political viability. If he had been President 00:22:43.740 --> 00:22:46.640 Hart or even just Senator Hart with his reputation 00:22:46.640 --> 00:22:49.240 intact, would that warning have been heeded? 00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:53.079 That is the ultimate unanswerable question. The 00:22:53.079 --> 00:22:55.220 scandal didn't just remove a candidate from the 00:22:55.220 --> 00:22:57.940 field. It sidelined a mind that had correctly 00:22:57.940 --> 00:23:00.920 diagnosed the defining threat of the 21st century. 00:23:01.470 --> 00:23:04.289 Because he was viewed as damaged goods, his warnings 00:23:04.289 --> 00:23:07.009 were easier to ignore. The static of his personal 00:23:07.009 --> 00:23:09.329 life drowned out the signal of his intelligence. 00:23:09.609 --> 00:23:11.390 That's it. That's the tragedy. It's unbelievable. 00:23:11.730 --> 00:23:13.930 But he did eventually find a way to serve again 00:23:13.930 --> 00:23:16.869 in a different capacity. He did. Under the Obama 00:23:16.869 --> 00:23:20.269 administration from 2014 to 2017, he served as 00:23:20.269 --> 00:23:22.369 the U .S. special envoy for Northern Ireland. 00:23:22.829 --> 00:23:25.549 It's a very difficult, very delicate diplomatic 00:23:25.549 --> 00:23:28.529 role helping to manage the peace process. And 00:23:28.529 --> 00:23:30.049 the fact that he was chosen for that, what does 00:23:30.049 --> 00:23:32.420 that signal? It shows that, at least within the 00:23:32.420 --> 00:23:34.740 serious circles of foreign policy, he had earned 00:23:34.740 --> 00:23:37.299 his redemption. He had proven he was the statesman 00:23:37.299 --> 00:23:39.519 he always claimed to be, despite the caricature. 00:23:39.799 --> 00:23:41.779 I want to touch on one final aspect before we 00:23:41.779 --> 00:23:45.160 wrap up. The personal side. The scandal was ostensibly 00:23:45.160 --> 00:23:48.240 about protecting the sanctity of marriage. The 00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:50.960 press destroyed him to save the country from 00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:53.400 an adulterer. Yeah. But looking at the sources, 00:23:53.700 --> 00:23:57.619 the marriage survived. It did. Gary and Lee Hart 00:23:57.619 --> 00:24:01.400 remained married until her death in 2021. And 00:24:01.400 --> 00:24:03.920 it wasn't a fairy tale. In public statements 00:24:03.920 --> 00:24:05.960 over the years, they were very honest about the 00:24:05.960 --> 00:24:08.019 fact that it was difficult. They admitted to 00:24:08.019 --> 00:24:10.240 the separations. They admitted to the pain. Hart 00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:12.400 said that the time they spent apart actually 00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:14.160 strengthened their marriage in the long run. 00:24:14.809 --> 00:24:17.269 but they changed to stay together. It just defies 00:24:17.269 --> 00:24:19.450 the simple narrative, doesn't it? The media treated 00:24:19.450 --> 00:24:22.130 it as a black and white morality play, but the 00:24:22.130 --> 00:24:25.369 reality was a complex, gray, very human relationship 00:24:25.369 --> 00:24:28.490 that endured for over 60 years. And in a way, 00:24:28.529 --> 00:24:30.569 that's the story of Gary Hart himself. He was 00:24:30.569 --> 00:24:32.730 never the caricature the media painted him as. 00:24:32.789 --> 00:24:34.970 He wasn't just the monkey business guy. He was 00:24:34.970 --> 00:24:37.990 a brilliant strategist, a flawed husband, a visionary 00:24:37.990 --> 00:24:40.549 policymaker, and a casualty of a changing culture. 00:24:40.809 --> 00:24:42.890 He's even found this weird second life in pop 00:24:42.890 --> 00:24:45.509 culture. He has. He's played by Hugh Jackman 00:24:45.509 --> 00:24:48.009 in the movie The Front Runner. He shows up in 00:24:48.009 --> 00:24:51.269 references on Cheers and The Golden Girls. But 00:24:51.269 --> 00:24:53.309 the weirdest one has to be Stephen King. Oh, 00:24:53.369 --> 00:24:55.910 right. He's the president in Stephen King's Dark 00:24:55.910 --> 00:24:58.670 Tower universe. In that alternate timeline, he 00:24:58.670 --> 00:25:02.470 won in 1988. A strange kind of immortality. To 00:25:02.470 --> 00:25:04.890 be the good president in a fantasy novel. It 00:25:04.890 --> 00:25:08.230 shows that he remains this symbol of what could 00:25:08.230 --> 00:25:12.059 have been. It's a powerful idea. So let's synthesize 00:25:12.059 --> 00:25:15.000 all this. We started with a farm boy who renamed 00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:18.799 himself for practical reasons. We saw the strategist 00:25:18.799 --> 00:25:21.359 who invented the modern caucus system, the Atari 00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:24.619 Democrat who foresaw the tech economy. Then the 00:25:24.619 --> 00:25:26.619 scandal that changed journalism forever. And 00:25:26.619 --> 00:25:29.000 the prophet who warned us about 9 -11 when almost 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:31.619 no one was listening. It is a dense, complicated 00:25:31.619 --> 00:25:33.880 legacy. The question I'm left with is the one 00:25:33.880 --> 00:25:36.079 we touched on earlier. Did the destruction of 00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:38.220 the wall between public and private life actually 00:25:38.220 --> 00:25:39.759 make us better off? We knew everything there 00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:42.039 was to know about Donna Rice. We knew nothing 00:25:42.039 --> 00:25:44.519 about the 19 terrorists training to fly planes 00:25:44.519 --> 00:25:46.900 in Florida. That is the verdict of history, isn't 00:25:46.900 --> 00:25:49.500 it? In our obsession with the personal failings 00:25:49.500 --> 00:25:52.240 of our leaders, we distracted ourselves from 00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:55.539 the existential threat. facing our nation, Hart 00:25:55.539 --> 00:25:58.380 warned us about the static. And looking back 00:25:58.380 --> 00:26:01.180 at that week in September 2001, it's just so 00:26:01.180 --> 00:26:03.519 hard to argue that we were listening to the right 00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:05.819 signal. Which leaves us with a provocative thought. 00:26:06.180 --> 00:26:08.160 Sometimes the headline everyone is screaming 00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:10.960 about is just noise, and the real story, the 00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:13.380 one that actually matters, is in the quiet report 00:26:13.380 --> 00:26:15.339 that nobody is bothering to read. Absolutely. 00:26:15.500 --> 00:26:18.369 The signal gets lost in the static. That's it 00:26:18.369 --> 00:26:20.509 for this deep dive into the paradox of Gary Hart. 00:26:20.609 --> 00:26:22.369 Thanks for listening. Thank you. We'll see you 00:26:22.369 --> 00:26:23.369 in the next one. Stay curious.