Gary Hart was a little known US Senator from Colorado in 1984 when he announced that he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. He came out of nowhere to nearly win the nomination that year. The former Vice President Walter Mondale eventually became the nominee.
During the next presidential election cycle Hart ran again and he was looking like the front-runner early on when his hopes were dashed after he became ensnared in what at the time was considered to be a sex scandal when the married senator was photographed with a pretty blonde sitting in his lap. How times have changed.
In this interview the former presidential candidate discussed his vision for how we can fix our polarized political process. He talked a little bit about the scandal that ended his political career. And he mentioned the presidential race that was underway that year between the incumbent Bill Clinton and Senator Bob Dole, an election that he probably wished he could have been observing from the vantage point of a president who was preparing to leave office following his second term. It all feels like it happened a million years ago.
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