Don’t fall for this pompous political sob story
A new film blames media muckraking for the state of politics today. Tim Stanley respectfully disagrees
In March 1987, the odds-on favourite to become the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate paid a visit to Miami. Gary Hart and a friend joined an overnight cruise to the island of Bimini, and the married father-of-two was introduced to a 29-year-old model and pharmaceutical rep called Donna Rice. What happened on board is unknown but, acting on an anonymous tip-off, a journalist for the Miami Herald later travelled to Washington DC and witnessed Miss Rice visiting Hart’s house on a Friday night just before midnight.
It might all sound insubstantial, but within a week Gary Hart had suspended his campaign amid a torrent of innuendo and late-show gags. It didn’t help that the name of the boat was Monkey Business.
The story has now been retold in The Front Runner, a gripping feature film by the director Jason Reitman (Up
and Hart should be flattered. Not only is he played by Wolverine stud Hugh Jackman, but some critical details about this mysterious affair have been cut out, to make a point about politics.
In Reitman’s telling, Hart was a natural-born leader from Colorado with a patient wife and a perfect head of hair. He wasn’t an angel, but he was handsome, charismatic, liberal and on course to win the presidency: by spring 1987, Hart was the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
But this wannabe Lincoln could be aloof and arrogant. When asked by a reporter if he was 100 per cent monogamous, Hart replied: “Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’ll be very bored.”
The Front Runner implies it was unfair of journalists to do what sounds a lot like their jobs and casts Hart’s disgrace as a turning point in US politics. We are encouraged to share Hart’s disgust of the media, to cheer when he first pokes holes in the Miami Herald’s story, and then die a little inside when more allegations surface.
The public didn’t care, says the film, because polls showed that they didn’t think adultery, if that’s what happened, was relevant to a man’s qualification for the presidency. But the press pack hounds would not let go. The candidate suspended his bid on May 8 with a speech on the dangers of muckraking. He quoted Thomas Jefferson: “I tremble for my country when I think we may, in fact, get the kind of leaders we deserve.” The notso-subtle hint is that years later, that’s what it did get, in Donald J Trump.
The date the film ends on, however, is a clue that it’s only telling half the story. Weeks later, the National Enquirer published a photo that showed Miss Rice sitting on Hart’s lap. He was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Monkey Business Crew”. The photo proved nothing, but it would’ve embarrassed most husbands into a period of silence. And yet, in December 1987, Hart threw himself back into the Democratic race. He did very badly and pulled out. I spotted no mention of either of these details – the photograph or the shameless return to the spotlight – in the film, even though they speak to the real weaknesses of Hart, man and politician.
I had the opportunity to interview Hart in retirement in the late 2000s and found him amusing, thoughtful and profoundly intelligent. Far from the intense hothead played by Jackman, he was relaxed to the point of Zen. I could understand how he’d charmed his way into the Senate in his 30s, before mounting a second-place run for the Democratic presidential primaries in 1984.
The other candidates, however, complained that, when it came to detail, they couldn’t see much that was exceptional about Gary Hart at all. Walter Mondale beat him in 1984 by deploying the tag-line from a popular advert for the restaurant chain Wendy’s: “Where’s the beef?” he asked. In other words, where was the substance behind Hart’s fine-sounding words? There was also some confusion about Hart’s real age. Although Hart admitted to having been separated from his wife, he said they were fully reconciled. The problem with whatever happened on the Monkey Business wasn’t just the inference of adultery – it was the suspicion of hypocrisy and obfuscation. Plus, he chose to go on the boat trip just when US attitudes towards sex in politics were on the turn. Betty Friedan, the feminist, wrote after the scandal: “This is the last time a candidate will be able to treat women as bimbos.”
Friedan was unduly optimistic, but what did change was that the “bimbos” would get names, TV appearances and book deals. Miss Rice proved to be the last of a more private and dignified breed: only later did she channel her fame into a noble campaign to protect children from online abuse.
It serves the film’s politics to suggest Hart was a potentially great man brought down by seedy hacks. If Hart had won the nomination, it implies, he’d have beaten Republican George Bush and taken the White House in 1989, which would’ve meant a multipolar world, a kinder economy, no George W Bush, no Iraq War, no Credit Crunch and no Donald Trump. The press, in other words, destroyed the US in pursuit of a scoop.
But if Hart had won the nomination, there is no guarantee that he would have beaten Bush. On the contrary, the economy was good, which favoured the Republicans, and the Cold War was coming to an end thanks, in part, to Ronald Reagan’s leadership. And there was almost no substantive difference between the Democratic nominee who did lose to Bush, Michael Dukakis, and Hart. Both men ran away from the liberal label, and yet proved to be too far to the Left of American voters on the key cultural issues of 1988: crime, abortion, patriotism.
The press was just as harsh to Republicans as it was to Democrats, which is why Bush had to spend so much time fending off questions about the Iran-contra scandal. In fact, Bush, unlike Hart, won plaudits for giving as good as he got. That the Republicans did a better job of reputation management is not just why they won but, arguably, why they deserved to.
Talk show host Johnny Carson, in one of his late-night monologues, said: “You’re running for the highest office in the land, you’re gonna take a little trip to Bimini with a couple of ladies and you’re gonna go down and charter a boat. Now, of all the boat names there are – like Mother or Mother Teresa – you hire a boat called Monkey Business? That’s not good thinking.”
Hart was supposed to be the “smart” candidate, but his failure to contain the Rice episode ruined that image. We don’t know what happened with Miss Rice and, in fact, it doesn’t matter: the point is, it was a farce.
We are encouraged to cheer when Hart pokes holes in the story, and then die a little inside when more allegations surface