Tonight on Frontline, the story of a campaign has never before seen, from its thrills of
victory to its blunders and defeats, it is an inside look at the American way of choosing
a leader.
I'm running for president, I'm not running to be a candidate for president, I don't particularly
like being a candidate.
Some people like to be a candidate, I don't like to be a candidate, I want to be president.
From the network of public television stations, a presentation of KCTS Seattle, WNET New York,
WPBT Miami, WTVS Detroit, and WGBH Boston, this is Frontline, with Judy Woodruff.
Tonight from Washington D.C., a special season premiere of Frontline.
Good evening, I'm Judy Woodruff.
This is the story of what it takes to run for president.
Like Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1980, or Walter Mondale in 84, Gary Hart decided
to try for his party's nomination.
When he started, he was one of eight candidates, with little money, organization, or recognition.
And it was back then that this story began.
One producer, Sherry Jones, came to us last fall and said she believed Hart might turn
into a major contender.
She proposed getting in early and getting in close to him and his campaign staff, and
telling the story of what happens, what it takes to run for president.
To survive the backbreaking pace of 50 primaries and caucuses, to have to raise millions of
dollars on a tight deadline.
To be, as Walter Mondale put it recently, always in crowds and always alone.
Now, almost two years after Hart started the race, we know he didn't make it.
But the unique access we had to his campaign still gives us a rare view of the American
political process.
A look at what goes on behind the closed doors, inside the strategy sessions, away from the
public eye.
Tonight, we have brought together a special group of people to join you in watching So
You Want to Be President.
This is the way we pick a president, and this is the way it begins.
It is over a year before the election, and the insiders, the political press, and the
activists are already gathering.
If you want your party's nomination, you have to court this crowd, whether you're Jimmy
Carter in 1976, or Ronald Reagan in 1980, or a candidate this year.
So an event like this in the fall of 1983 takes place when most of us aren't watching.
It's the insiders who come to take a look at the men who want to be president.
Of the 230 million people in this country, the seven men in this room have decided, each
in his own way, for his own reasons, that he wants the power to negotiate with the Soviets,
to say how we should be taxed, to decide whether or not to send soldiers to war.
That decision begins a journey they all must take.
What was your assessment of tonight's debate?
Oh, I'll leave that up to all you experts in that area.
I thought it was very interesting.
I was glad to participate.
You know, I think I'm doing well.
I'm not taking anything for granted.
It's early.
I think those polls have shown me coming up, they've shown Mondale and myself virtually
even.
It's creating politics as if it were a horse race or a football match.
This is the leadership and the future of this nation.
It's not a question of who gains some slight tactical advantage over somebody else.
I think it's a first step, a first step in a long process of forcing the candidates to
specifically state their views on some very critical issues.
The reason I ask is because it always has been treated in that fashion, and I was just
wondering, what are you doing differently from that, focusing on the issues?
I'm sure he blinked and started this way.
Gary Hart's been a United States senator for 10 years.
He announced he was running for president February 17th, 1983, and set out to face what
every little known candidate must.
Hi, I'm Gary Hart, running for president.
Just wanted to stop and say hello and leave one of these with you.
Thank you.
I'd like for you to keep me in mind as time goes on.
All right.
Okay.
See you're busy.
Good job.
Yeah.
Right.
Good to see you.
You caught me in the wrong time.
Hi, I'm Gary Hart.
Good to see you.
How are you?
You're running for president?
Yeah.
A dark horse like Hart gets little attention because, by definition, no one knows him, and
that means no standing in the polls, which means no press, which means no attention.
I'm running for president.
It's good to see you.
It's probably easier for me to try to reach him in perhaps half an hour or so.
Oh, it's just I'm calling with regard to my presidential campaign, and I'll call back.
Thanks.
Okay.
A friend once said of Hart, he dislikes glad handing, false intimacy, and asking strangers
for money.
To run for president, he must do them all.
Tabitha, that's Gary Hart.
I'm really sorry to be bothering you.
Hart must ask potential contributors to give to a campaign that supposedly doesn't have
a chance.
John, this is Gary.
It's September, six months before the first primary.
The press has declared it a two-man race between Mondale and Glenn.
Any participation that you would care to be involved in, we'd like to have you with us.
Yeah.
I have never been a front-runner in any campaign, including my own re-election race in Colorado,
and every campaign I've ever been involved in, really, on my own behalf or anyone else,
has always been against the odds, and people say, how can you do this, or how are you going
to do that?
I say, we'll just do it.
I mean, there's no, I can't, I don't have any tricks up my sleeve, we'll just do it.
Why are you running?
Because I think this country is at a crossroads, I really do.
I don't think this is a normal election.
And I think the other candidates pretty much represent normal politics and no real new
departures in governing in the 80s, and I don't think we're going to solve our problems,
which means we'll continue to decline without those new departures.
I think it's a critical election.
It's not for the fun of it, I'll tell you.
The Sheraton Wayfarer Bar in Manchester, New Hampshire, where the political press hangs
out a few months every four years, is always the first primary.
This is it, this is the New Hampshire primary.
There's going to be an upset, it will be here, but the candidates are very much aware of
how important this is, and the leading candidate has done a hell of an organizational job here,
and if he loses here, he doesn't deserve to be president of the United States, or Tobago
or Grenada, or even Granada.
Has there been an invasion in the last couple of hours?
Yeah, we've invaded.
That would be the National Press Corps, I mean the United States Army.
We invaded Idaho.
Idaho, yeah.
I think we have a war of day policy.
But you know what I think this is all about is latent anger and frustration at the killing
of the Marines in Beirut.
He spent the day debating the Grenada invasion in the Senate.
When you're running for president, though, the real action's here.
Hart once said there have been more lies told in this bar than any bar in America, but he
needs the political pundits.
They handicapped the race for the insiders, so he stops by.
Get the shit out of somebody, whether they're the right guys or not.
It would be catastrophic for this country to get involved in the Iraq-Iranian war, and
I think that is what Casper Weinberger has in mind.
What does that do to our support of Israel?
I mean, Iraq is...
What does it do to our support in Central America to do what we did in Grenada?
I mean, who cares?
These people just don't think about those things.
Do you think the Americans are in danger?
I don't know.
The president won't tell us.
I mean...
The people that came off the plane said they were in danger.
Yeah, when the bullets started flying.
Killed the ground when they got off the planes.
That's right.
That's right.
And if you'd...
So what would you have done differently?
If you'd been through a revolution, I expect you would have been...
What would you have done differently?
Yeah, I would have tried to find out first.
Well, would you have gone in and tried to save our Americans?
If they were in danger, yes, but we don't know whether they were or not.
Well, they said they were in danger.
After the invasion started.
Well, I think you ought to address the point.
Senator...
Do you want to see the news?
Well, you know, when you look...
We are not in a position of giving them ink.
We're in a position of reporting what's going on.
If a guy is a bomb, all part of our job is to ignore them.
That's part of our job.
If I have decided that a candidate doesn't deserve any more attention than I give him,
it's not because of the polls, it's because I've been out there, I've been out in the
states and I've heard what people say, I've heard what he's doing, and I've made a judgment
that this guy is just not cutting it.
One minute, one minute until the start of the convention, one minute.
October 29th, the next morning.
All the candidates appear before a party forum, each to audition his campaign theme.
I believe what this nation wants is new leadership, new ideas, and a new vision for our future.
He's one percent in the polls, and he is trying to build an organization here.
He believes his message will gain him campaign workers, and will connect him alone with the
huge generation of voters born during the 40s and 50s, because his perception of government,
like theirs, was shaped by three searing events, Kennedy's assassination, Watergate, and Vietnam.
The truth is that President Reagan is using force as a first resort instead of a last
resort.
The truth is that brave young Americans are being deployed and losing their lives in defense
of a foreign policy that cannot be articulated, let alone defended.
I don't know what this president is going to do for a foreign policy when he runs out
of Marines, our soldiers.
I can't wait to see what the media reports on the Channel 11, you know, 11 o'clock news
tonight.
It's going to be good.
It's a good day for you.
Well, when the reporters get the message that this race is wide open, that someone like
myself has a very good chance, the whole campaign is going to change.
Let me tell you something, they were in New York and they were in Boston.
It takes them light years to figure out what's going on.
Drives me crazy.
Well, I hope so.
You did have the best line in the entire afternoon, as far as I'm concerned, and use it again,
if you will, which was, what will Ronald Reagan have left for a foreign policy when he runs
out of Marines?
That's great.
That was good.
If we had this whole crowd of people there today, I wouldn't have a bit of trouble raising
money.
I'm really honest.
I wouldn't.
They never see that.
That night, Hart meets with what there is of his national finance operation.
He's brought them all to New Hampshire to watch him on stage, hoping his performance
will boost their enthusiasm for raising money.
He has $400,000 in debt.
Privately, he's talked about dropping out if he can't persuade these people to stay with
him a little longer.
I mentioned this morning that the reporters are hung up on this is a different process
because it happens faster.
What their thesis is that they were sold very successfully by the two frontrunners is, hey,
Dark Horse can't win anymore because this system has collapsed.
Well, that's nonsense.
You can get awful famous in this country in seven days.
I mean, it's phenomenal.
It doesn't take much.
In name recognition, your polls go up.
I mean, the pattern is you do better than you're supposed to in the early states.
That is reported in the analysis of the caucus and primaries.
People then get excited about the campaign, begin to talk about you.
You're on television more.
You're in the newspapers more.
Your name recognition goes up and money begins to come in.
How do you feel about where things are now?
I couldn't be more pleased by our political situation.
I'm constantly frustrated by the financial situation.
I mean, I've never seen a race that was more winnable than this one.
It's out there.
I mean, it is out there.
I can touch it.
I can feel it.
And even more, it's important to win and we're not just talking the same chop livers.
But then you face this frustration and the only comparable times were the first Senate
race and the McGovern campaign where you could just put your hands on it.
You just knew it was there and you just, you know, people needed to be paid, bills had
to be paid, people had to be hired.
We have, I'll tell you something, there are 50 to 100 of the best political organizers
in this country we could have like that.
If we could pay them $100 a week, $200 a week.
We're not talking $50,000 a year.
We're talking just subsistence.
People who said, I want to work for you, who are talented, capable people who can take
congressional districts or take regions and organize the hell out of them for $200 a week.
Anyway, I feel I couldn't feel better about it.
I mean, I really couldn't.
I get up on that stage and I look up and down that row and I say to myself, if I can't win
this race.
January 1984, election year.
The first primary now six weeks away.
The National Press Corps has moved to New Hampshire.
More and more they present this nomination race as one that will be over before it begins.
Hi, how are you?
Good to see you.
How are you?
Gary Hart has moved to New Hampshire too and the last three democratic elections, a dark
horse has won by surprising the front runner here.
Walter Mondale leads in the polls.
He's been endorsed by dozens of politicians and the AFL-CIO.
Each endorsement is reported as if it's a primary he's won.
It's said the party rules favor the richest, best organized candidate, that his nomination
is inevitable.
Gary Hart has taken a second mortgage on his home to buy television ads that say the politics
of yesterday have failed us.
I have enough sense of the chemistry of politics that I think if you, if your message is right
and you are the right candidate for the time, that you overcome these things one way or
the other.
Again, I think it gets down to whether you're going to play the game that a handful of politicians
and the people who report on their activities say you ought to, or whether you're going
to leapfrog that and do it differently.
Maybe there is some risk involved, but I've been kind of a high-risk candidate all my
life.
If I didn't take any risks, I wouldn't be here.
February 20, Hart gets only 15 percent in the Iowa caucuses, but he is second to Mondale,
and that's better than the pundits expected.
They turn their attention to him.
He may not like the game, but he knows how it's played.
How well does Mondale have to do?
As the front-runner, as the person with the endorsements, as the person with the $10 million,
and as the person who's benefited most from the public opinion polls, I think he has to
do very, very well.
And the obvious next question is how well do you have to do?
Better than expected.
Which, is this the car he's going in?
Yeah.
All right.
This is the car I'm going in.
Hart's own polls show only a third of the people of New Hampshire think it's time for
his new leadership.
But seven days of television news and television commercials lie ahead.
New Hampshire's primary is now just a week away.
February 28, 1984.
The press has spent tens of millions of dollars predicting Mondale's victory, and they've
done what they usually do, get it wrong.
It appears tonight that Senator Gary Hart is on his way to a clear-cut victory over
Walter Mondale, and that would really shake up this race for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
He's called a cool and reserved politician, but he says emotion is the product of success,
that the day he wins his first primary, his will be the most emotional campaign of all.
He wins New Hampshire.
Over a year ago, this campaign started with an idea, and that is adopt a new generation
of leadership with new ideas and new proposals for this country.
Many people thought, including the front-runner, that this campaign would be over tonight.
This campaign just begins tonight.
The real political organization in this country is the nationwide web of homes connected by
television, and for the first time, those homes are going to hear Hart's message, broadcast
by 11 television crews and 60 journalists who sign up in the next few days to follow
him.
From New England and the South, to the North and to the West, the people of this country
want new leadership and a new agenda and a new vision for this country's future.
The Democratic Party in the past has stood for equality and justice and opportunity.
It has also stood for leadership in a period of change.
Bold, experimental, new leadership to address the challenges of tomorrow and the day after
tomorrow and not to let this country slip into the past.
All the people of this country are ready for new leadership, a new agenda and new vision
for this country's future.
If you continue what you have done, we are going to surprise and amaze a lot of people,
and we are going on to San Francisco and on to the White House.
Washington.
This is the national headquarters of Americans with Heart.
For four months, what staff exists here has worked without pay.
That includes the campaign manager, Pudge Hankel.
We had to transfer about a quarter of a million.
Hankel heads a campaign that never really expected to win.
This has got to be done within the next hour.
Let's talk about operations.
Paul is the office manager, Becky is the head of the operator pool.
Is Dan developing a system?
Okay.
I'll let him develop the system then, but I think she will be in the middle of it.
Because somehow there was a time change between Pensacola and Orlando and we lost an hour.
I don't feel comfortable dealing with members of Congress.
We are going to need, we desperately need all of the details on the Florida trip for
Thursday.
Where, what, does anybody know them?
No, no one.
I just talked to Billy and he wants everything by 10 in the morning every day.
There's no way.
It's good.
Look, here's the problem.
To begin with, they're just really pissed off about this.
Gun control lady's on home.
This is a scheduling deal.
They're still on the phone.
I'll have to take your number and you have someone.
No.
Well, sir, I'm sorry.
I cannot.
People can't get to us.
There are 10,000 people trying to reach Geringhart and it may rise or fall, as Doug says, on
the breakup of AT&T and getting phones in.
I think that all of us within the campaign would agree that we do not want to end up
after Wyoming or after Super Tuesday with the feeling that this is, in essence, a Michael
Jackson phenomenon rather than a serious presidential political phenomenon.
In less than 100 days, 50 primaries and caucuses will be over.
We're overwhelmed by the mechanics of what's happening and it's going to be like a tornado.
We're going to be overwhelmed all the way.
It's a prairie fire out there and we've got to decentralize it.
We want everybody from every other campaign to feel comfortable that there's a place for
them in the Hart campaign.
But a lot of the political people have past baggage.
They're going to have their enemies.
They're going to have their factions.
They're going to be a whole lot of people popping up in states like Pennsylvania and
all over the place saying, we are Geringhart.
Or maybe it's premature, but do you have a state by state list because we get a lot
of calls from people.
Yes, we can give you copies of that before you take off.
Excellent New York City office numbers and that sort of thing.
New York City doesn't have an office number, which is a big problem.
But we will have that.
We don't have a New Jersey yet.
We don't have a Pennsylvania yet.
The day after New Hampshire, they decide the campaign will depend on media instead of organization.
There's little choice.
Ray Strother produces the campaign commercials.
I think this is the single most important thing we do today.
This is, I'll tell you something people don't want.
It may help us in the short term, but if we become a divisive campaign, that's not
what people want.
I agree.
And I think that's why Glenn is not doing well and I think it's why Mondale will not
do well.
Attack is fun in the short term.
I mean, it's kind of gets the juices going, but it's not what people in this country
want.
Well, I agree.
Did they tell you about my billboard campaign?
No.
Six hundred billboards going up in Florida, Georgia and Alabama tomorrow morning, starting
at eight o'clock.
You might have somebody check with the environmentalists.
Billboards are anathema in Colorado.
They may not be in Florida.
People hate billboards.
Well, they're not erecting anything.
They're filling black space.
Yeah.
Arrival, gentlemen.
Clear the front, please.
As he himself had predicted, he's become a national celebrity overnight.
That extends to Maine, where the party is holding caucuses.
It is five days after New Hampshire.
We are told that it's too close to call and you are separated and running behind Mondale
by fewer than twenty-five votes.
With twenty-eight percent in, what can you do?
I can't say anything.
We'll wait until the votes are all in.
I think if, in some respects, we've already won in Maine, we came from way behind.
We weren't supposed to be able to do anything there.
I didn't compete in the straw poll.
We spent one-tenth of what Walter Mondale did.
So I think any showing we make is going to be a victory for us.
The party rules in 1984 dictate that everything happened fast.
What the rules don't anticipate is the age of video politics and the spontaneous combustion
that can result.
Hart's the beneficiary now, but there's a question.
Is he prepared for all that follows?
No.
We're going to control this situation now.
No.
Have you got both of your names?
Okay, just pull them out.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
The party will vote on the same day, what is called Super Tuesday.
From Florida and Georgia to Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Hart and his staff must
compete.
I just stand up.
I mean, I just stand up and put my card down and say I want to thank you.
I mean, I can't put all...
I'm too beyond putting it to memory anymore.
Who are you appealing to in the South?
The core of the appeal, I think, is to that generational group.
Kathy Bushkin is Hart's press secretary and the top advisor.
You really seem to be touching something.
It's like hitting a gusher.
Pat Cadell is a chief strategist.
One has to restate the theme of the campaign over and over and over.
Need for new leadership and a new approach, a fresh approach.
That all?
I think it's gotten it.
I think it's gotten it.
But even more than that, I think what you're going to get then is people beginning to project
themselves.
I think it's gotten it.
I think it's gotten it.
But even more than that, I think what you're going to get then is people beginning to project
themselves on to the candidacy.
And that's when things really start to work.
We have four or five different people who are totally ideologically incompatible with
one another.
The whole thing, Gary Hart is their guy.
But then what happens?
You win.
The pace of the primaries and the rules were designed to keep people like Hart out.
But Pat Cadell, who's been George McGovern and Jimmy Carter's poster, knows there's
potential for something else.
Among themselves, he, Hart, and the staff are counting on turning the rules upside down.
I think we've got a shot of wrapping it up by Illinois before anyone realizes whatever
happened.
Remember, a week ago, they all wanted to know about what southern state you were going to
concentrate on.
And we let them play with that thing.
And then all of a sudden, it's being a dawn on them that they haven't really done anything
for all of them.
And now we've already met.
We're going to exceed what they set down as the expectations.
Can you win any place on Super Tuesday?
Then can you win any place in the South on Super Tuesday?
And we're going to exceed what they set down as the expectations.
Can you win any place on Super Tuesday?
Then can you win any place in the South on Super Tuesday?
And we're going to exceed what they set down as the expectations.
Can you win any place on Super Tuesday?
Then can you win any place in the South on Super Tuesday?
And we're going to exceed both of those, which just keeps driving the thing on.
It's an amazing tactical move for us.
This nation can and must provide a diplomatic and moral and political leadership to freeze,
halt, and sharply reduce the nuclear arms race in 1985.
The Democratic Party must meet its social obligations.
Thirty-three thousand miles in thirteen days, eleven states.
In fifty campaign stops, he rides a blitzkrieg of publicity.
And that is moving forward with a new agenda and a new vision for this country.
Mostly they stop at airports.
There's no time to drive into town.
In the age of video politics, you run a tarmac campaign.
That gives this nation something to stand for other than just our invasions.
That does not send our sons to die without cause in Lebanon or to serve as bodyguards
for dictators in Central America.
I say I don't know too much about him, but I'm going to read up on him.
For two weeks, Hart's a master at exploiting the power of television.
But its hunger for the next story makes television a two-edged sword.
You say you're a Gary Hart man.
Where does he fit in politics?
What's his philosophy?
Oh, good government, I guess.
Straighten out the economy.
You know.
Do you know very much about him?
Not too much yet because the newspapers here haven't...
What do you mean by charismatic?
Change his name, you know, and then obviously we don't know how old he is.
I mean, you know, these are just fundamental things.
I don't really understand why.
Well, a lot of people change their name.
You know, if tomorrow you guys find out that he didn't really go to Yale, he just audited
classes there or something.
I mean, that's a real issue.
Changing your name is not.
I read the papers this morning, and they said in his effort to be like Gary, he's going
to change his name.
He's going to change his name.
He's going to change his name.
He's going to change his name.
He's going to change his name.
He's going to change his name.
He's going to change his name.
I read the papers this morning, and they said in his effort to be like John Kennedy, Gary
Hart puts his hands in his pockets and also chops the air.
So now my problem is to figure out where to put my hands.
I can't put them in my pocket, and I can't chop the air.
I think I'll start doing this.
Is that all right?
Does he have to win one in the South to prove that he is more than just an American?
Wait a second.
Wait a second.
Wait a second.
Two weeks ago, the question was on the day they have your primary from all of you and
all your colleagues was, where can you possibly go anywhere to do anything after New Hampshire?
So now it looks like we may win in the North, and now the question is, well, do you have
to win in the South?
The answer is we have to do what we need to do.
I'm not going to get held to those expectations.
I said on the day of the New Hampshire primary we would go someplace and we would win on
Super Tuesday, and that should satisfy everybody.
I don't think it's fair enough being a hero.
Why do you allow this aura of mystery and gaspism to be laid on you on this silly birthday
thing?
On what?
On this silly birthday thing.
Don't allow it.
I've given the best explanation I can.
There's no secret.
What is it I'm supposed to do?
On this plane, but on the ground as well, people are saying, and not rudely or snidely,
but sincerely, who is Gary Hart?
But even the bigger question is, what is this phenomenon?
And perhaps down the road, what does it bode for politics as we know it?
We are to blame.
I say we the media are to blame for the fact that everybody's saying who is Gary Hart because
we just come through a year, 1983, in which the polls and the pundits, including many
of us, decided that it was a two-man race between John Glenn and Walter Mondale.
And it's true that Hart's been talking about issues for the last year.
It's just that he hasn't received anywhere near the attention of the others.
He was sort of buried in the back of the pack.
And because he was buried there, even before anyone cast a vote, he was pretty much ignored.
People want to hope again.
They want to believe again.
They really are.
I think that's what they're responding to.
Thank you.
And it sounds ridiculous, but these very old ladies in nursing homes and young kids say,
you know, what a face.
God, he's much more handsome in person than he is on the two.
Is this going to play in Geneva?
You know, what do they think about this in Bonn?
Gosh, he's adorable.
Who knows?
God bless America.
Oh, really?
I mean, it's been four in a row, one right after another.
Can't you play in the frontrunner's status yet?
I'll wait till I read it in the papers.
Lane Kerfler said today that you were all Bonn and no beef.
Who said that?
Lane Kerfler.
Where's the beef?
The next day, Atlanta.
Don't leave Atlanta without a stop-raising button.
The candidates gather two days before Super Tuesday.
At the very moment, most voters are beginning to ask, who is this Gary Hart?
In presidential campaigns more than any other, the candidate is the campaign.
But Hart is running just to keep up, missing the seriousness of the questions about his character.
As reporters gather to watch, it's Mondale who's determined to lead the news.
We don't elect images. We elect a human being.
You refused to vote a windfall profits tax, which, if you had been successful, would have given Big Oil $250 billion.
This is a disaster, and I don't think you thought it through.
Well, Mr. Mondale, let me respond.
Let me respond. When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad, Where's the Beef?
If you'd listen just a minute, I think you'd hear.
No, you haven't.
He ran off with that one.
Really?
He ran off with that one.
That's the best one.
There's no contest.
Really?
I don't know who the producer was, but they were just...
And every time they would attack you and you'd have a smile on your face, the whole attack just withered away at that point.
It's withered away my makeup.
It's only the first time they'll miss the effectiveness of Mondale's attack.
And I just wish that he would stop having a debate about the invented past.
He's raised the one question that will be repeated throughout the campaign.
This is the most distinctive debate here we've had in a whole, of all of it.
I vote.
It was the most distinctive debate.
It helps to be the poor states under your belt.
Voters are not the only ones who suddenly flock to Hardside.
The newest political star attracts the Hollywood stars, and they attract what's needed most, money.
People will pay to meet Penny Marshall or Jack Nicholson.
It's $2 that you and your damn dancer are in the real club.
She did.
She did.
And I'll bet it.
Celebrity fundraisers are only one way to raise money in a presidential campaign.
People like Don Montgomery have all sorts of ways.
Hello, how are you doing today? This is Don Montgomery.
I'm the state finance chairman for Gary Hart.
Gary will be in the state on the 17th.
Yeah.
I'll try. I'll do everything I can.
If you can promise to raise $5, we're going to have an event at that time.
I think we can probably definitely put you with a candidate if you could raise $5,000.
All right, we're going to send a runner over right now to pick up the $1,000.
No, no, we'll do it today.
There'll be somebody in your office in another 30 minutes.
Thank you very much. Thank you for your concern.
Once you are a winner, or look to be the winner, everybody wants to play.
They even called me. I got lots of calls.
I even had people coming down here from Washington that wanted to run this agency or that agency.
They'd heard from a friend of a friend that I was close,
and so they just called me up and got on a plane and came down here and took me to lunch.
When was this? After New Hampshire?
Right after New Hampshire.
I mean, I raise money all the time. That's all I do in campaigns.
And nobody ever asks me about issues.
They only want to know two things. Can you win, and do you have access to the candidate?
And if I give you money, will he know that I gave it to you?
And that's primarily what you have to do.
You have to establish people like Don and put them in a position where they have access.
You funnel the money through him.
He gives it to the campaign, and the campaign knows it, so he's the kingpin, or he's the point in North Texas.
We were doing, like, $5,000 a day after New Hampshire.
I mean, you just, you had runners to go pick up the money.
Super Tuesday.
The suddenly popular finance committee meets in a hotel in Washington.
The campaign has spent $750,000 on television ads in Super Tuesday states,
which requires cash up front.
Cash from these people.
You wanted a beta, weren't you?
No, I was a final.
Final. I was Sigma Chi.
For you, sure. You were in my class.
We played $25,000.
A presidential campaign is limited by law to spending $24 million.
Part of that comes from tax money that matches what your campaign must first raise.
Mondale has raised $17 million in this campaign.
We have raised and spent less than $3 million in this entire campaign.
So to raise $400,000 by Friday from the group of people that I see sitting out here,
I know is not a very difficult task.
The large financial institutions have loan portfolios.
They have people who do business with them in all different areas.
And when you look at where the money comes from, that's where all the money comes from.
Real estate guys are real goodness business.
I mean, they're the best fundraisers they are.
They have a lot of people. They have real estate salesmen, real estate attorneys,
builders, brokers, bankers. You can call real estate guys
and give them quotas of $15,000 in 10 days.
They live off of each other so intertwining.
If the broker doesn't come forward with his quota,
he may not be the next broker on the next big project.
It gets down to interior decorators, architects.
Let me just tell you, I gave money to him because I do business with him.
They do hundreds of millions of dollars of business.
Let me know who the candidates are.
Tomorrow, Joe and James O'Neill have got to go to Riggs Bank
to increase our line of credit from $1.3 million to probably $2.3 million.
We're going to take our projections with them,
but we also want to take a copy of a pledge from each of you
as to what you think you can raise.
It will show the bank that we have people out there who say they can do it
and can get the job done.
This row projects that they're going to be able to raise $99,500
by the time of the Illinois primary.
We're just getting the figures up as to what can be done.
I'm not sure if this is everyone, but we have $73,000 here.
Well, the row says by Friday, 13-5, and by March the 20th, $33,000.
The total amount of money that has been pledged by next Tuesday is $995,000.
Is the Riggs Bank man here?
Almost a million dollars in two hours,
enough for another two weeks or so of television.
Here's a list of each contributor and what they wear.
Did you read in this packet the information about matching funds?
The federal government matches up to $250 for every contributor.
So in this situation, you get the extra $250.
In this situation, we would only get $250 in matching funds.
You know, I've been at this too long to care about credit,
but how do you handle the past?
I've been doing this for a year.
Yeah, I was wondering about that, too.
I say I've been at it too long to be worried about that.
Doug wrote Doug.
So let's put up $350,000. This other guy put up $106,000.
This place is a mob scene. There's no way Gary will get to talk to them.
Individually, is there any way you can help on that?
He will, but he doesn't want to do it up here.
He wants to do it down there.
Tell him we will spend the majority of our time down there
talking to those couple of guys.
In a room upstairs, the wait for Super Tuesday returns.
Mondale, the apparent winner in Alabama.
Hart seems to be running well in Massachusetts.
The problem is Massachusetts is smaller.
That's a little better.
Hart's campaign is banking on a quick knockout.
That sounds a little better.
He knows his organization will have trouble sustaining a long battle
if Mondale and the unions get the chance to regroup.
Last question, is he going to do the stills that Karen wanted him to do?
Yes, he is.
There are those moments in any campaign
that could change the way history will be written.
This is one.
Mondale has lost four in a row.
His withdrawal plan is ready.
It comes down to Georgia.
If Hart wins there, Mondale will drop out the next day.
ABC News now projects that Walter Mondale is the winner in Georgia.
Mondale wins by less than 2%.
You can only guess what goes through Hart's mind.
He knows better than anyone the momentum he's riding cannot last forever.
Two days later, Chicago, Illinois.
Almost 200 delegates are at stake in the Illinois primary,
what Caddell calls the crucial battleground.
The Hart headquarters has been here nine days.
How are you doing, Barbara? How do you like cold weather?
Oh, I like it.
The lack of money and organization in 1983 now haunts the campaign.
This is front-loading, the way the Democratic Party planned it.
As in many states, the Illinois ballot is complicated.
Voting for the candidate is separate from voting for the delegates
who support that candidate.
Hart doesn't have delegates in most places.
So they try to adopt people pledged to candidates who've dropped out.
To vote for Gary Hart, you must vote for someone else.
They're depending on media to make up for the lack of organization.
Hart is a hit in the polls, but barely.
The state campaign director tries to keep things under control.
Nothing has been done to support the field operation whatsoever.
The places I've asked to go haven't been gone to.
I don't know what polling you have. I wish I did,
so I could have strategically deployed my resources yesterday.
Even if I had the demographics, I could have had a better idea.
I wish I had it, too.
And three decisions are being made at once on the schedule.
Ruth's making one, Washington's making one,
and Gary and Kathy on the Krell and Crap Game are making another one.
And who do you think eats the shit for all these crazy decisions that are being made?
I feel shut out. Maybe I'm out of line.
You're not out of line.
The problem is communication, this campaign, we're all shut out.
I'm not looking for answers, Wayne. I'm just looking for a little bit of respect.
They've got growing pains out of Washington.
There's no doubt about it. They're stretched beyond endurance.
They really are.
We're stretched beyond endurance here, too, but it's been a shorter time.
And I think it's rather remarkable that we can even find the candidate
and actually hook up with him on occasion.
It's just insane.
You go from a handful of staff to trying to run a national campaign
in nine states spread across the country on Tuesday
and then seven caucus states on Saturday and then Illinois and Minnesota the next Tuesday.
It's remarkable. It's no way to elect a president.
We elect presidents in campaigns awash in press coverage.
There's a constant search for something that's news.
No, I'm not going to retract anything.
Let's not push. Come on, don't push.
No, we didn't order a run. That was the problem.
And nothing makes news like a mistake, a gaffe.
In Illinois, for four days, this is what's news.
Pat Cadell and Ray Strother produce a negative ad
linking Mondale to a local machine politician named Verdoliac.
Hart doesn't like the ad.
The most effective thing on election is radio.
He orders that they take it off the air, but that's easier said than done.
That act is just, I think, a woman.
Hang on just a second.
Verdoliac ads are still running in Rockford.
Okay.
I just talked to Strother's office and they said everything was off.
I'll call him again.
Presidential campaigns turn on mistakes like this.
As Hart leaves Illinois, Mondale is taking advantage of the stumbles.
He claims Hart is too untested, too unsteady to be president.
What worries you the most?
Nothing particular.
Well, I mean that seriously.
I know who I am and I know what the message is,
and I know that I have to keep stating that message,
and people will either respond or not.
As I say, I think my serenity, if you will,
is caused by the fact that I am either saying the right thing,
in which case we'll succeed,
or I'm not saying the right thing in case we will not,
but there's nothing I can do about it.
It's election night.
Have we gotten through to Hart at all?
The networks have projected that Hart will lose by seven points.
Is there a reason why they're not calling us?
The campaign staff here thinks it will be closer.
He's going to go on a year without calling us?
This is going to be like the commercial, right?
They want him to know the defeat is not as bad as he thinks,
so he can tailor his speech accordingly.
I believe the results show several things.
Well, we were caught up finally by the so-called...
Well, he's on TV right now
with figures that are totally different from the figures we've got.
Well, we've got three phones sitting here.
Here's Northern Illinois.
We just dropped off the cliff because of that ad.
It's really the message.
They're buying off on the campaign screw-ups,
and this is some inner meaning.
Gene, help us out.
Thanks a lot. Bye.
This was CBS lighting director.
What?
It's a lighting director with CBS.
You called headquarters at the Mayflower
and you get the lighting director with CBS?
It's amazing that Hart gets anything at all with that kind of staff.
...even though he is making concession speech
in the Illinois Democratic...
In fact, Hart loses Illinois by four and a half points.
He said to Gary Hart, he's saying, Mr. Mayor...
April 4th.
Well, we had a meeting on Tuesday night
that lasted until 3, 3.30 in the morning.
The Illinois loss is followed two weeks later
by an 18-point defeat in New York.
I think there are unusual things that occurred in New York
that some of which we had control over,
some of which we didn't.
Pudge-Hankel presides over a campaign that's split into three
here at headquarters, Hart on the plane,
and with strategist Caddell.
More fundamentally, I think, is the message
and whether we are continuing to get away from our...
The message is what voters absorbed from all three campaigns.
For two weeks, Hart has said he's running a positive race
while they've spent a million dollars on ads that attack Mondale.
So the script for a new commercial
heads the agenda of this meeting of advisors.
The special interests are fighting Gary Hart
because this is the prize,
and the cake is in the shape of the United States.
When they carve it up, when all the PACs, all of the lobbyists,
and all the insiders get what they want,
what will be left for you?
Who pays the bill for all of those promises for political support?
You do.
Gary Hart, no strings.
Now, the metaphor gets lost.
You have strings and a cake, and that doesn't seem to...
Unless you take a string and you're cutting the cake with a string.
What does it mean?
Is there anybody in the campaign who is questioning
the effectiveness at this point of negative advertising
on Gary Hart's part in the campaign?
Our distinction has always been
that where you're doing a contrasting ad,
that that's drawing distinctions and differences
and is not necessarily negative,
because people can come out on either side of the question.
But I think the question is whether
that's really telling people what I still think the fundamental question is,
and that is, who's Gary Hart and what is he about
and what's he going to do?
And I like the contrast.
I just question whether any longer that ought to be the focus of the contrast.
I just don't think that the people of Pennsylvania are going to be overly persuaded
that that's a reason to vote for Gary Hart.
If anything, if you're out of work or if your industries are dying,
you want somebody to go lobby for you.
The problem with the negative stuff is that they try to convince him of too much.
Nobody's going to believe that he's a tool of special interest,
and that's just too easy to answer.
But if you convince people that he's not a leader, and Gary is,
that's enough. That's plenty.
Pudge, can I ask an indelicate question?
I don't think it's that indelicate.
The indelicate question is whether you've sought some other input
from other people on these ads. I frankly haven't seen...
No, no, no, I don't mean on these. I mean on our ad campaign.
Have you gone to talk to some other people?
I frankly haven't seen one ad, and I haven't seen most of them.
I've seen some. I haven't seen one ad we've done that I think is all that hot.
And these are lousy, in my opinion.
And I just wonder whether there are some other people in this business
who can help us and supplement what Ray and other people are doing.
Special interests are fighting Gary Hart because this is the prize
when they carve it up.
It's saying broken promises instead of political promises.
Ray Strother is the man in the middle.
He's producing the ad campaign conceived largely by Caddell
and making the changes ordered by Henkel.
Change number 35.
When he finishes a conversation with one, the other one calls.
What do you want me to do?
I just simply ran out of time.
Special interests are fighting Gary Hart because this is the prize.
See, I don't know. I just have one person's word for it.
That's why I asked for priorities.
I wanted those that you thought were most important.
Yeah, go ahead.
Hart does not intervene to stop the staff warfare.
Who pays the bill?
If no one in charge, everyone is.
Who pays the bill for all of those crap?
Come on, Sarah.
All right.
I don't know if Senator Hart had a chance to have some Jumbalaya yet.
We're going to see if we get a little bit right.
Paid ads cost money.
Press coverage is free.
Press coverage is free.
It's even called free media.
It's more important in campaigns today than the paid.
Television's power drives every campaign.
What a community sees on the local news.
What the country sees on the networks.
Hi, may I speak to the superintendent, please?
This is Hart headquarters in northern Louisiana.
Yeah, I'll tell you what I need. I'm with Senator Hart's staff.
Politics used to be ward bosses and precinct captains.
Now, in all campaigns, they've been replaced by the person who does press advance.
Her job today, recruit some local farmers to create a news event with a message.
There's something along the lines of a commercial, though this particular site is not...
I mean, we didn't have to stage anything, which is there and perfect.
This is what the people on the plane never see.
Backstage in a kind of political street theater where the locals are only extras.
It rains. I'm going back to New Jersey.
I deserve New Jersey after this.
That's a Roger, repeat the number of guests and also what the weather is like there, over.
About 50, 50 guests.
Weather, it's not raining yet, but it's getting dark.
She is seriously driven.
That's a Roger, break the aircraft.
In and out, in and out.
And I'm, like, real tired of it.
Let's do it.
She takes her orders from the plane, and with 10 minutes until it lands, they're worried about the weather.
They tell her to move the event under shelter.
Hey, local press, local cameras, listen to me.
Just hold that space in the front for the nationals, and you're fine.
Just set up where you were before.
Farmers, farmers.
Just get in the press area.
Okay.
Just get in the press area, I don't want to talk about it.
Okay.
Come on.
Darren, where are you?
Just minutes later, the sun is out.
People, please, if you move now, he's going to be here any minute.
Just step back for me, please.
Senator Hart walked by, and he stopped, and he said, what the hell was I doing in Las Vegas?
I don't know.
I mean, he's supposed to know that.
But, you know, it's become surreal.
It has.
He said at one point, told me that he, on one long, long, grinding day near the end of the day, he had finished a speech at a fundraiser after I don't know how many events that day, and he said later it frightened him that he realized he couldn't remember what he had said.
The candidate ends up, like a bee, flitting from flower to flower, pausing briefly to pollinate the flower, and then moving on.
We never get a sense for the public and the places we go.
Candidates probably don't either, but they're forced to do that because of a system that requires them to touch down, really, in each media market to get as much quick, fast exposure as they can before they move on.
You don't ever read a story today that says, uh, Walter Mondale spent the day campaigning at Pittsburgh.
Well, no one spends the day doing anything.
All you do is fly. All you do is fly, go from one place to another.
You don't learn anything.
Well, I mean, I don't even know where we are now.
The system has become, it's become a blur.
It's become, um, much too fast to have much to do with the reality of people's lives.
And I wonder whether or not the candidate, whomever he will be, comes out of this.
What understanding he has of the country that he presumes now to lead.
It is 40 days after the New Hampshire primary.
Half the delegates have been chosen.
Hart is 300 behind.
Let me just check.
Michigan wants, in 20 minutes, everything there is to know about the seal industry.
There are still no issues files on the Hart campaign plane.
Mondale's attacks yesterday were unbelievable on us.
Mondale's attacks hit Hart's character as much as his rhetoric.
There's tension between Hart and his staff about how to respond.
New people are hired to bring coherence to the campaign, from the speeches to the schedule.
Oh, that sucks. Oh, that stinks.
Because it's just not the same event.
He ain't going to hold up no pigs, Pat. He doesn't like pigs.
He didn't want to have anything to do with pigs.
That was the one thing he told us about our agriculture day.
But it's a time when their opponents are facing problems, too.
The Mondale campaign has spent too much money too fast, and it's approaching the legal limit.
And did you guys see the Washington Post story today?
Walter Mondale reacting to disclosure that special delegate committees supporting his candidacy or accepting money
first denounced the practice and then appeared to soften his stance yesterday,
and his top aide said nothing can be done to stop it.
Mondale's campaign manager, and here's a guy who wants to run the United States, can't even run his own staff.
We've been taking all that kind of shit for the last month.
Listen to this. Mondale's campaign manager, Bob Beckel, said the campaign would continue encouraging formation of the independent committees.
They are committees to take money from union political action committees, PACs.
We can do about it. Mondale doesn't like it, and I, of course, don't like it.
We have no right to go to the labor unions, however, and tell them not to spend their money.
It goes on. There's plenty more after that.
Kathy called in this morning and asked specifically,
said Gary is interested in knowing what kind of follow-up the roadshow should be doing on this today.
He may be violating the law.
Second, he's clearly subverting all the notions of campaign reform that everybody in this party is supposed to be for.
And third, he's being hypocritical about it.
He's got his guys in the back room calling up saying, get your committee started, knowing Fullwell are going to take PAC money,
while he's out on the street saying, oh, no, not me.
The guy who's playing the piano in the horror house.
I think that we have to think about something we haven't had an opportunity to do, which is developing almost a story a day on this.
The press is uncovering it. It's an investigative story. It has a lot more credibility with people.
I think everybody would agree that Gary plays off the story. It's how deeply he gets involved in making the story.
Why give Montiel an opportunity to come back and say, why are we so gun-shy?
We've made a lot of mistakes in the past, but we've got the issue. Why are we scared if we've got the issue?
But we can press the issue without going into the facts and let the press bring the facts out.
This is not a thing that ever should come down to our lawyers, our Arnold and Porter lawyers versus their Arnold and Porter lawyers.
That's ridiculous.
This is how it works. The press carries messages back and forth between campaign planes,
asking one candidate to respond to what the other has said.
When Hart finally presses the question of PAC money, when he makes it a political issue for the political press,
Mondale is besieged and orders the committees shut down.
But by then, the money has been spent in a number of primaries which Mondale wins.
Hart is 400 delegates behind. He ups the ante.
He met what he said in January of 1983 that we should, quote, declare war on special interest money in American politics.
He can take one simple cleansing step. He must give the money back.
Give the money back.
He said, in retrospect, I think the committee should never have been formed.
They're going to give back a ballpark figure of, they think it's going to amount to about 300,000.
And they don't really say how they arrived at that.
And they said that they think there will be another 500,000 that they are going to declare against the spending limits.
The press has two theories on it.
They said that Hart's got a hell of a good issue here and that we'd better get rid of it fast.
The other is that they just don't need the money anymore.
So they said, why, you know, why take the hassle?
They can do their same kind of arrogant thing.
You can give the money back, but you can't get the trust back.
You know, there's a notion of giving the money back, but you're still a sleazebag or something like that.
We just said that CBS is just going to rip Mondale apart tonight.
That's the word we got.
Slice and hack.
This is great. This is it.
Gary Hart and others said stopping that practice wasn't enough, that Mondale should give the money back.
Today, Mondale, in effect, agreed to do that.
Gary Hart's response, that's still not enough.
There's no way for Mondale to get back to the primaries where those committees were active.
A blizzard now in its fourth place.
Mondale has made a politically smart move.
End of story.
May.
It is less than five weeks before the end of the primaries.
Hart's advisors join the plane with their own private poll that shows Mondale vulnerable in Ohio and Indiana.
Hart could win both states.
They all know he must start winning soon.
The Mondale camp is selling the notion that it's impossible that Hart can ever win enough delegates to catch up.
Let me tell you something.
If this campaign hadn't been optimistic, we wouldn't be here today.
It is oriental in the sense that our strengths are always our weaknesses.
And his strengths were with labor in labor states.
Now we're headed into states that are not labor states.
And his strengths are not going to be his strengths.
They may turn out to be his weaknesses.
The calendar for now favors me in a nutshell.
How do you see it playing out so you're going to be close enough to come after Mondale and the convention?
I'll just repeat what I've just been saying.
Labor states are much more favorable to us.
He's got eight days to win the primaries in Ohio and Indiana.
Our vision for the future of this nation's economy must be a president who will lead in the rebuilding and repairing of this nation's economic foundations.
A president who will lead in the modernization of our industries, the training of our workers.
The campaign here comes straight from their poll.
Mondale has been winning late deciding voters who are worried about jobs.
So in every speech and photo op, the heart message is jobs.
The manufacturing workers going back to work in this state in 1985.
Our number one domestic priority must be to create the best education and training system in the world.
And I say to Mr. Reagan, if you think education is too expensive, wait until you find out how much ignorance costs.
I'm glad you tried to answer a question earlier today.
You said it was up to Mr. Mondale to hash things up.
No, I thought it was not quite what I said.
Are you so bitter about the campaign that you're not interested in bending things?
No, exactly what I said was that I thought that if there was reaching out to be done,
he had more reaching out to do than I did.
Senator, your campaign's been described as four and a half million dollars in debt.
Are you four and a half million dollars in debt?
No, the answer is no.
You had said earlier and have said over the last several days that the polls show you to be more electable than Mr. Mondale.
And now we have a poll that shows that essentially there's no difference between the two of you.
So how can you continue to make that argument?
How can you say it's not due to what back in the 60s and 70s?
Do you not think, for instance, that the Iran episode...
The political vultures are already circling the Hart campaign.
If the senator from Colorado doesn't win something tomorrow,
then his dying quest for the presidency is going to start looking very dead.
Steve Shepard, ABC News with the Hart campaign, Columbus, Ohio.
I think we got two week in the youth, right?
I mean, we said basically that, you know, he's got to win something pretty soon in our view.
I know he says that's not true. Maybe he knows something we don't know.
But if he goes down in Ohio and Indiana and North Carolina and whatever the other one is tomorrow,
it's not going to look very good.
And if he doesn't and he gets one...
Now, if he wins one of those, he's still alive.
If he wins Ohio, he's very much alive.
Yeah, I agree. I agree.
Then we can all come back and say, hey, surprise.
I don't think we're being rough on him.
Most people like him.
May 8th, the day of the vote.
The stories are all the same.
People declared it, quote, inconceivable, unquote, that Hart would drop out now.
I mean, we can only keep putting people off for so long.
So are the questions.
The campaign is $4 million in debt.
If you all can agree on sort of roughly what our situation is,
do we have outstanding loans?
People have asked if we're still getting paid, and I've said,
well, I just got a paycheck, and people seem to let it go at that.
Little do they know it's my January paycheck.
What's going to be the reaction, not to the advanced people in the field,
but here, to everyone's going-off salary?
What's going to be the reaction? I'm going to lose some people.
I think that's really where we're going to be at,
even if we won everything today.
We really reached that stage, and I think we've got to do it cleanly.
I'm prepared to tell people on the plane tomorrow there's no more salaries.
Okay.
If that's going to be kept alive, you know.
What you're talking about is freezing the existing debt.
Basically.
Because you're going to need the money flowing in to run the campaign going in,
so just everyone has to understand what you're doing, you know.
We think it's going to cost a million and three to run an all-out campaign
from that old convention, and that includes nothing for paid media.
Late tonight, when indications are better, maybe we want to come back here
and work on it tonight when we have a clear indication of how we've done,
because if we lose all four, then the press is going to abandon the hard campaign.
Oh.
51-40, Indiana.
That's what all the exit polls have been saying all day.
51-40.
Gary Hart does well with younger, better-educated Richard voters.
Oh, yuppies.
Get those yuppies down.
And we will go from San Francisco to the White House.
Whatever tonight's results, Gary Hart says he will not drop out
and somehow convince himself and his staff that he can still win,
but he has also convinced the people who come through that he is no fool
and that he will not stay in so long that he will be embarrassed.
Roger Mudd, NBC News, Washington.
Roger.
Excuse me, excuse me, my audio has a crackle.
Testing one, two, three.
Election night for Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, and North Carolina.
It's yet another night that depends less on the results
than on how the press interprets them.
Roll back the stone, you know, the guy's up.
Resurrection, yeah, he's won Indiana, and he can't win Ohio.
It's dead even.
If that happens, the whole lid comes off again,
because he can win in Nebraska, he can win in Oregon.
He's probably going to win California.
And even New Jersey.
Money starts coming back in.
We start sleeping less.
Folsom, Ohio.
Losing the other two.
Losing Maryland and North Carolina.
I suppose they'll call, if it's Folsom, Ohio, Hart's going to play victory.
The Hart people say we're in the ball game,
but they're eight runs behind, it's the bottom of the eighth,
and they're not going to buy any gloves and balls.
When he goes down, he can claim Indiana, express what?
Real hope about Ohio?
Real good. I think we've got a real shot at it.
And then less, and North Carolina's tightened up to about six points.
I think he should not mention North Carolina.
I think he knows us to exist tonight.
And I think it wipes out last week.
I mean, who cares about North Carolina?
Nothing else, certainly no one would expect of this.
And we ought to say that.
Have you heard the figures?
No.
It has to do with resurrection.
Are we right? I think we are.
In a press club gym or a hotel room on the road,
meetings with Hart are infrequent and brief.
Let's run through what we're going to do down there.
You've got an anxious crowd.
And I think Frank's right, Gary.
You let them all cheer and go crazy when they see you.
Is somebody going to introduce them?
No.
Indiana with 50% in is 40-38.
You're ahead, but they're projecting you the winner
based on the counties that are in and not in.
Who's that?
CBS is not. CBS says it's too close.
Note that this is 250 pounds that he's lifting.
I wouldn't mess with that.
Say those numbers again.
23%.
These moments are often their only chance
to get his attention.
I think you claim it.
No, but you say this.
It's a union state. It's a heavily union state.
Every office holder in the state was against me.
We're ahead in whatever happens.
If we end up even, it's a victory.
Mondale has got to regard this as an immensely
disappointing day in Ohio.
We're also doing better with union voters
than any of the major states now.
We're running within 10%.
What I've been saying is your economic message
was really good.
By the way, we carried union vote
and it shows you get these appendages.
We carried the young union workers
fairly substantially apparently.
It was the opportunity message
that really resonated independently.
This is what you planned.
This is the way we planned it.
You remember it, don't you?
You remember it, don't you?
It wasn't the way I planned it.
John and I, we got documents to prove it.
We may not have a candidate in a few minutes
if this keeps up.
That's enough of that.
Sherry! Sherry! Sherry! Sherry!
The next morning, campaign headquarters.
If you wanted to sum up with the people
on the hill feel at this point,
they want the race to be over.
I'm sure that's right.
Hart's advisors must confront the fact
fact that this year more than 500 delegates are appointed to the convention, the so-called
superdelegates. They're party leaders. Many are members of Congress, where Hart is known
as a loner.
We want unity, and we don't think we are the cause of disunity. We are talking about some
issues of fundamental importance to the party itself, which will make it, in our view, maybe
misguided, but in our view, a stronger party, and work toward becoming a majority party again.
What the members will say to that is really what we want to do. We want to win in 84.
And what you are doing, Gary Hart, you're making it more difficult for Fritz Mondale
to win after the primary. It's inevitable that Mondale will get the nomination, and you're
just making him—I mean, that's their argument.
The margin of victory may well be the political pros, and that's the problem Hart's advisors
face.
We're the outsiders, and Fritz is the insider.
And they like him. They don't dislike him.
They like him personally, on a personal basis. They like the people around him. They're committed
in a lot of different ways. So if the ultimate result of this campaign is that we've got
to play an insider's game to win it, you'd better think again.
June. He's won four of the last six primaries, but is more than 500 delegates behind. And
it comes down to the end. Five primaries on the same day. The two biggest on opposite
coasts—California and New Jersey.
We must succeed in New Jersey. The voters of this state literally have the power to
change the course of American history, and you can do it. I believe you will do it. And
with your help, I intend to be the next president of the United States.
It's now mathematically impossible for Hart to win enough delegates to win the nomination
outright. But if he beats Mondale in the final contests, Mondale won't have enough delegates
either. The nomination will be decided at the convention. They cross the country six
times in 13 days, in a system that prizes endurance as much as anything.
As he plays to crowds on both coasts, he's really playing to the party elite—the uncommitted
and the superdelegates, who'll make known their choice once the primaries are over.
Some of them have told Hart they'll support him, but only if he wins both New Jersey and
California.
You've got to remember, this is by nature, you're dealing with some pretty cautious people
here when you're talking about the superdelegates. And I think they're going to want to sit back,
see how things are unfolding elsewhere, see what kind of movement is going.
Well, if that happens in 50 states, I don't see how Hart gets anywhere. You guys are always
talking about how that's going to happen, and then you say it's going to happen somewhere
else first. Where does it start?
It starts with a couple of key people in a couple of key states.
Well, isn't this about as key a state as it's going to be if you win it?
Then you'll see a couple of key people go—
When?
I'm not going to—
As soon as something happens somewhere else.
Thursday at noon. I mean, what am I going to say?
You're going to keep on singing, and I'm going to keep on singing, and I'm going to
keep on singing.
There's no hiding place down here. I ran to the rocks to hide my face. I said there's
no hiding place, there's no hiding place down here.
Did you hear the sport on the TV holding forth about war nukes and big doll rings?
He was dreaming, of course, but he runs the Air Force, and he's talking about World War
Oh, no, there's no hiding place down here.
There's no hiding place down here.
Senator, the delegate count at this point
would seem to make the arithmetic,
would seem to make it virtually impossible
for you to get the nomination.
You don't agree?
We'll get her out of the first ballot.
Can you talk to us in a second?
No, I think we're done.
Thank you very much, Senator.
Now, I am a Democrat by choice,
and I am proud of it.
On the campaign trail,
you watch the candidates age.
They are fueled only by exhaustion.
I am proud of it because the Democratic Party
has student quality and opportunity
for every citizen in this society.
Every speech is as important as the last one.
You can't make mistakes.
In this century, that was John Kennedy in 1960
and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932,
and before them, Woodrow Wilson,
and in between, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter.
And I am proud of those presidents,
and I am proud of what this party has contributed
to elevate the standard of living
for all Americans in our society.
Washington.
Hart's polls for New Jersey and California
are taken by Pat Cadell and his associates.
Strong leadership is about where it was
maybe a little bit better than New York and Pennsylvania.
Excitance spires where it is.
Crisis.
They search for more than who's ahead or behind.
They look to those phrases which describe
the underbelly of the electorate,
what people actually think of Hart and why.
New Jersey looks difficult today.
I agree with that.
To win both states, they must devise a strategy
with a different message and plan for each
based on the money they have,
Hart's strengths and his weaknesses.
I understand it's the problems of New Jersey.
It's Kerry Hart's lowest comparing of 23%.
Now, here's the thing.
Hart is seven points behind in New Jersey.
California looks better.
We look at California, by the way,
and that's why I think California's going to come.
We're ahead already on cares.
We could go easy there and win,
but would not win a major delegate victory.
That could be the trade-off in trying to win New Jersey.
We're not going to have it both ways, right?
I doubt it.
Unless they've come up with more money
than I think we've got out there,
we're not going to have it both ways.
What would happen if they were asked
to make a sacrifice for New Jersey?
This would go over very well, right?
What?
In California, in terms of...
That's a little delicate issue.
I suppose if we just flat out believe
we could not win New Jersey,
then we've got no other choice,
but my own feeling of that is
that's Mondale's nomination.
Mondale's nomination, I believe,
rides on the New Jersey beauty contest.
Right.
New Jersey.
Ray Strother preps a group of people
recruited by his office to appear
in the last round of Hart campaign ads.
He promised to pay back the money.
Why is he going to wait until the primaries are over
and use the money?
Isn't that the same as getting the money?
They will appear on TV as average citizens.
You know, I used to, when I got started in this business,
New Jersey was sort of a joke,
and it isn't anymore, and I want to ask you out there,
what happened?
But what they will say has been carefully planned.
It's Strother's job to make sure these people
speak the message the Hart campaign
wants New Jersey voters to hear.
All I ask is don't look at the camera.
If you glance at the camera, it really ruins the shot.
What I'm asking you to do is be spontaneous,
because spontaneous is real.
Tell me, Gary Hart's talking about change,
he's talking about the future, and somehow
he says that this state fits his pattern,
fits his plan for America.
This state proves that something can be done.
What do you think about that?
Make that transition.
Gary Hart, new ideas, is that New Jersey?
I think it is, yes.
He's got ideas for the future,
he's got a new tax plan that he's thinking about.
What about you in the back?
The positive message is to play to New Jersey's pride
that if New Jersey can change, so can the country.
It links the state with Hart's original message,
new ideas.
Like a regular person.
Was it wrong to take that PAC money?
Yes.
Was it dishonest, or just unethical,
or just a mistake?
Probably all the above.
Unethical, unethical, and dishonest.
A mistake? No.
I don't think it was a mistake.
He knew what he was doing.
He's unethical and dishonest about something like this.
If he does get into office, how will he handle
the country in that respect?
Is he going to be just as dishonest and unethical
about every other issue that comes up?
I wouldn't trust him.
Thank you very much.
This is the finest cast we've ever had.
Good to see you.
What do you say to all of them?
After two hours, Strother has almost all the material he needs,
except for putting the candidate in the scene.
Somebody said that they made a difference here,
and they have a vision for the future here
that you don't find other places.
How can we infect the rest of the country
with this vision for the future?
The United States has done the best
when it's had a clear vision of its future.
That's what we need in the 1980s.
The people of New Jersey have provided
that vision for their own opportunities
here at home in this state.
You approved what this country can do
if you have the right kind of leadership,
and that's the kind of leadership
I want to provide this nation in the 1980s.
Cut. Very good.
Very good.
You'll need 30 seconds.
It takes a while.
Old leadership of the past that hasn't worked
will not work in the future,
and my opponent hasn't outlined
what his vision for the future is.
Hair is going all over.
That's natural.
I didn't use hairspray.
Unethical and dishonest.
A mistake? No.
I don't think it was a mistake.
He knew what he was doing.
If he's honest about something like this,
if he does get into office,
what does that say to his administration?
Do we want to go that far out
with integrity in the spot?
We can't call him a liar.
Hey, Ray, can I ask you something?
Hang on to this stuff,
because a lot of it that we don't use,
I think we may use after June 5th.
I really mean that.
I'd like a lot of Democratic officeholders
on June 5th at the convention
to take a look at what these people are saying.
That would be very interesting.
Go back all the way through the room.
I'll let policy at all.
I'll just walk over.
Anything I ought to know about?
Well, tell me.
Oh, really?
Oh, they're doing well out there, aren't they?
It's always good to know.
All right, bye.
He was in California last night,
and he said that my wife Lee
has been out here campaigning for 12 days,
and I've been stuck in New Jersey.
Who said that?
The fundraisers.
They never close fundraisers.
If it was before, I mean, I'm sure,
if it was before an audience, he wouldn't say that.
A fundraising thing is always a different kind of setting.
NBC's going to run it over the weekend.
Well,
if that comment becomes a story
we're dead in New Jersey,
and the Democrats are basically going to try
and be advancing this notion of linkage
of heart to New Jersey on the economic future
and what they've already done,
and get that boat out there when we're dead.
And I think we've got to prepare.
We're going to have to think about
and prepare a very strong, almost kind of
indignant response from him, saying,
wait a minute, I was talking about my wife,
who I hadn't seen in umpteen days
because I've been there and she's been there.
It doesn't have anything to do with New Jersey.
But I think we'd better be ready to do that.
Because he would not say that
if he was, I don't think,
he wouldn't say it if he was in front of
you know, a Q&A.
It'd be a different psychology.
When he's in a fundraising group, he sort of lets his guard down
a little bit, and then you get a
quote like that.
Which is, I mean, he wasn't, you know, it was just sort of a natural
thing. You or I would say it.
But we're not campaigning for president.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
Okay, see ya.
Well,
I can say, these spots may be rendered meaningless.
I can uh, I can foresee a uh,
a Mondale spy.
Gary Hart,
quote, I was stuck
in New Jersey.
Gary Hart was to say New Jersey
is important, but what does he
really think, when he's outside
of the state?
May 25th, 1984, Los Angeles,
California.
Patterson, New Jersey.
The Hart schedule has been planned so the
television pictures will be ones of enthusiastic
rallies, suggesting momentum
in the final days before the vote.
But the TV audience
sees replays of the gaffe more
often than it sees what he says on the stump.
I have a vision of this
nation in the 1980s.
A vision of an economy
in Patterson, in the state
of New Jersey and all across
America, in which unemployed
people are back to work
repairing and rebuilding
the bridges and highways of this
nation. And I have a vision
of the best education
and training system
of any country on this planet.
And when I debate
Mr. Reagan next fall
and he says, how do you
intend to pay for your education
policies and those
jobs, I intend to say
by canceling the AMX missile
and the B-1 bomber.
Three months ago,
this campaign began
in the snows of New Hampshire
with an upset
wind in the first primary.
Tomorrow ends
the primary process
and I believe here in New Jersey
we are going to upset
the pollsters, the pundits
and the actors of this
campaign.
And I believe that
this campaign is going to
upset the pollsters, the pundits
and the experts and we are going to
win the New Jersey primary.
In New Hampshire they used to call
Gary Boring and he was the issue
candidate and
here was another living room of 40
people that he bored again
because he was talking about issues.
But people listened to that
and they discovered him and
appreciated what he had to offer
but since then he hasn't been able to do that
so it's all filtered through the media
and whatever they choose to focus on is what people know about it
so it's a different kind of choice.
And he believes he's going to win, still does
after all this.
June 5th, the last day of the primaries.
It's like the last day of camp.
The campaign seems little more than a kaleidoscope
of hotel rooms and bus rides,
photo ops and events.
But the sharpest memory is yet to come.
The campaigns chartered a plane
from the only airline to extend
them credit.
This one goes at the top of the list.
I'd like all you people to remain seated.
Don't pay me enough.
How did you feel when you saw the plane?
Shitless.
How did you feel?
Did it frighten you?
You know what happened?
It blew out the engine.
Let me just pay $3,000 for all this.
The charter company is having a fire sale on trip.
It was like the Titanic.
Near my god.
Near my god.
You've heard about our tour.
You've heard about our tour.
You've heard about our tour.
You've heard about our tour.
You've heard about our tour.
You've heard about our tour.
You've heard about our tour.
You've heard about our tour.
It was almost it.
It was almost over.
Quickly, because we only have about 5 minutes.
What are the exit poles?
Okay, now is there anything...
4 PM Eastern Time.
The poles are still open,
but the networks know what's going to happen in New Jersey.
Hi.
just handed me NBC's, which was 4726, which has this down to 21.
Hi, is Eli around?
Should drop out?
Yeah.
Are you over with today?
No, no, no.
Will the delegates find me over tonight?
You don't think so?
We could have.
I don't know, I said no.
No, it goes to the convention.
And then what happens?
I win the nomination on the first ballot.
You're sure of that?
Yes, always happens.
What about the uncommitted delegates?
We'll win those on the issue of electability.
I'll have the best chance to win against Ronald Reagan.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I hope you win.
You, talking to you, especially to you.
Everybody's getting pushed right down where the cars are coming in.
The uncommitted delegates and congressmen who might switch to hard side
live mostly in East Coast time.
And what they see on the nightly news is not that he may win here in California,
but that he's already lost New Jersey.
Senator, any comment about the results in New Jersey so far?
We haven't heard a thing.
We've been on airplanes all day.
Thank you.
Senator!
Senator!
Senator!
I will expand those thanks to Lee, John, Andre, and myself,
to the tens of thousands in South Dakota, in New Mexico,
and in the state of California,
who I think have given us three out of five victories tonight.
The hardest thing of all may be knowing when to say it's over.
No more cheering crowds.
No more chants that you might be president.
And if the candidate won't say it, neither will the staff.
Hard delegates had $4,056,000.
Mondale delegates had $3,776,000.
In a final twist on the rules designed to benefit the frontrunner,
it's Hard instead who wins a huge delegate victory in California,
enough to keep Mondale from going over the top during the night.
It wasn't so bad in the morning news.
I don't know if you saw them.
Well, the one I saw basically said,
Mondale says he's got it, Hard says it's not over and he's going all the way,
and Jackson says he's going to stay in it to do what he needs or do whatever.
I mean, if we keep that being the news, I think that's okay.
Give her a take.
Boy, do I have a headache.
We've swept the West. We've swept New England.
We've even swept the primaries of the Midwest, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin.
I mean, it's a hell of a story.
It's less Gary Horth and the Walter Mondale.
How could they nominate a guy who's lost nine of the last 12 primaries,
hasn't won a primary west of Illinois and Tennessee?
We've got to make a decision on going back.
The feeling is on the Hill that we ought to go back.
You're kidding?
No.
They've set up meetings with Bird and with Kennedy and with Bumpers,
and Dodd has got to come back.
First thing tomorrow, 9.30 tomorrow morning.
And the things are starting.
Tip O'Neill arrived at the house today saying he was going to meet with Gary Horth tomorrow
and was going to advise him on the deal.
He apparently said, I'm going to tell him that I love a good fighter.
He's fought a great fight, and we Irish love fights, but it's time to get out.
But the feeling is, there's a whole lot of people who feel that we ought not.
At this moment in Minnesota, the Walter Mondale is on the telephone
rounding up enough mayors and congressmen, superdelegates,
to give him the 1,967 he needs to say, I am the nominee.
How was your day?
Oh, terrific. I can't wait to get going on this one.
If there's anything that's been consistent about the impressions about this campaign
is that it's been over several times.
It was over before New Hampshire.
It was over before Ohio.
And there will be those, I'm sure, today who are saying or have already said
that it's over once again.
I would think after enough projections of this campaign being over when it wasn't
that people would understand that's a dangerous thing to do.
The seams are all right.
Keep going.
Look for dirt on here.
If you fall down, that's what's going to fall down on you.
There are six more weeks until the Democratic convention,
but this is really the last ride of the Hart campaign.
They jumped out of their seats.
They cannot miss a shot.
This plane goes down.
We won't be around.
It's the only chance Mondale's got.
It's the only chance Mondale's got.
Gary Hart ends his journey in San Francisco.
He has 1,200 delegates.
He has $4.5 million in debt.
He says he'd do it all over again.
I ask all those in this hall and across this land who fought and bled with me
in so many noble battles to join with me as I ask you, Madam Chair,
to entertain a motion from the floor of this convention
to make unanimous by acclamation the nomination of Walter F. Mondale
as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.
Do I hear a second?
Democrat or Republican, four years ago or four years from now,
this is the journey you must take if you want to be president.
Thank you.