Hart-searching

Nicholas von Hoffman

Washington

ASuper Tuesday approached, the Gary Hart phenomenon seemed to shudder, pause and then jump forward again. The hesitation may have arisen from a realisa- tion by the Colorado Senator's supporters that 211 they knew about their champion is that he looks to be the best hope Democrats have to defeat Ronald Reagan in the fall.

The political press, which failed to see Hart coming, is now at work explaining what the Senator's attractions are to the voters who made Tuesday truly Super for him. In addition to the anybody-who-can- beat-Reagan faction, it is now being said that Hart evokes the same confident idealism that John Kennedy once did. For voters aged 40 and under he may give off a certain fresh determination that they like; they may believe it when he says that his turn in the White House is their turn to come to power. We have been getting a lot of talk these past few days about the strug- gle between the old generation and the new. So perhaps Gary Hart is Galahad against the geezers.

They say that Hart is copying John Ken- nedy's gestures, his way of fiddling with the middle button on his coat jacket, that his hair has been styled to remind the teenagers of the early Sixties of those shots in Life magazine of the young President walking on the beach barefoot at Hyannisport. It could be that had something to do with Hart's destroying Mondale in Massachusetts, although the Senator ran nearly as well in Florida.

There is the new-ideas team, which con- trasts so tellingly with Fritz Mondale's old- ideas appearance. According to Douglass Lea, who was one of Mondale's speech writers until about six months ago, Mon- dale had had a man-of-future-ideas speech written for him but he would not deliver it. The speech eventually was walked down the street to Hart who not only delivered it but used it as a magazine article. Ex-Senator Gene McCarthy once said of Mondale that the man has the soul of a vice-president, an office described by vice-president Cactus Jack Garner as being the functional equivalent of a picture of Luke-warm piss. That may be a bit unfair to Mondale, but he does give the impression of a man dragged away from his nap. There is nothing hungry about him, nor can there be about anyone who regularly lunches at the Four Seasons Hotel, a restaurant expensive even by Washington's loose expense-account stan- dards. The word on Mondale is not that he is particularly corrupt, but that he has settl- ed into a de-luxe life, that he is, in his inner self, not only prepared to lose, but might welcome it; they say he is one of those can-

didates, as Teddy Kennedy was four years ago, who is making the fight because he was nudged into it by his handlers and his managers; that they are the hungry people in his campaign.

Hart, by comparison, comes across as a man with a strong appetite for high place and power. There is something strangled about him, as though a djinn inside him is raging around trying to get out and is only kept captive when he achieves a state of per- manent tension. Around Washington the joke is that if you want to render him tongue-tied and bereft of speech, come up to Hart and say, 'Hi! Gary, how are you?'.

In that day and a half when it appeared the Hart campaign had paused, a reporter asked one of his new supporters what she knew about the Senator. The answer that came back was that it was an unfair ques- tion. Yet in Washington, at least, questions are being asked about who this man is.

Why did he change his name from Hart- pence to Hart? He did it years and years ago, before he was in politics, but it bothers people anyhow. He also has lowered his age by one year to 46. What that is about nobody knows. Hart says it has to do with a family joke which he has not elaborated on. Around town they are whispering he did it to cover up his not having registered for the draft when he should have as a youth. There is no evidence for that whatsoever, but when people feel they do not know a figure they invent their knowledge. And Hart is a loner. Ronald Reagan has his California gang, Jimmy Carter had his Georgians, but if Hart has a Colorado gang nobody has seen them yet.

Hart, who has twice been separated from his wife, was reconciled to her only two

et in

is being criticised for that, though not Y e the public prints. There is also mor

speculation about his sex life than abet° any other candidate in memory. Reporters nblica- from Murdochian-type hairbag P

lions are coursing about the capita ;

of the free world looking for ladies with a plau ble claim to having bedded the 11,,e'i; Democratic front-runner. Thus far tue' have found none, but the conviction rinis deep in this nasty little Southern city that there is scandal there somewhere and :101.11.- nalistic enterprise will find it.

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On a higher plane of discourse, ther,e„ the discussion of Hart's politics and "°'' they differ from Mondale's. The Senator i5, classified as what they call an Al,arl Democrat'. Atari is the name of an elec: tronic game and Atari Democrats are those who preach that economic salvation is to no, found in a computer chip. Like his felit°1,e Ataris, Hart is for important changes in „`nt tax system and a programme of government sponsorship of private sector develoPlnell somewhat along the lines used in farla11,,. Walter Mondale are a The differences separating hint -an administrator of liberal programmes' clos He gives off a picture of himself as a stene who does not want to destroY them:Ass but oisd sdeetaclmlisa..111;1,_lee, oceanic. Hart seems more different than_n is because he is aware of how important eau' phasic on frugal and efficient public ays, ministration is to a broad class of volra Ronald Reagan does, sure they work and at the lowest Pass

cost. „, Hardly revolutionary stuff, but it

him elected to the Senate twice, al,,l1°,11e`t, the last time by only a short head. c'e",,,,s theless, Hart is a Westerner who kfilc{or how to get other Westerners to v°'cvsiest him. The Democrats have carried the 90. in only one presidential election site lance As the population grows and the L.,' i5 continues to tilt Westward, the PartYo.in either going to have to learn how to and states like Colorado, Washington the California or resign itself to joinil the tourist line when it wants to get ins!'

But Super Tuesday did not get Hart the White House. nomination. It knocked out an the kern didates but him and Mondale. Me'r-i-jeii folded as soon as the results were in" has nothing with which to earr)„fice Jackson is fun but reduced to Inn"

h and value and minstrsy.

ar" • punches to the bel•Yll good lick to Mondale's chops and one back at the Four Seasons. As for H A e' be of the staff people in House Speaker 1 it O'Neil's office said, 'He's gonna 11,,ajntess down in the next two or three week,„sh; one there's cocaine there somewhere. 1"t-hear piece of gossip about Hart you do 11°' ;„ The is that he has ever been a drugg—Leiirig remark was a way of underlining thertartl- that we may learn something new and 5 ing about Gary Hart at any minute. yet be The season of surprises may lint over,