What Kind of a President would Gary Hart be today?
A One-time Leading Contender for the White House Reflects on What’s Happened to America Since a Sex Scandal Derailed His Political Career
Former senator and one-time presidential candidate Gary Hart has kept a close eye on the country since leaving office. The author of 21 books, he is especially troubled by what he calls “the increasing gap between purpose and performance” — that is, between the people we believe ourselves to be and the country we have created in our image.
When Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of country the Constitutional Convention had fashioned, he replied: “A republic… if you can keep it.” . In Hart’s view, our leaders have so corrupted the very fabric of America that our founders would have trouble recognizing it.
Hart tells WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman that the corruption he sees is not just about money. It’s about how we handle every aspect of our politics and our government.
Cleaning up the mess will require a massive effort of restoration. As he puts it in his book The Republic of Conscience, “Preservation and renewal of our first principles represent the duty we owe our founders to the Republic they bequeathed to us and our posterity.”
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Related front page panorama photo credit: Adapted by WhoWhatWhy from Floodgate (Unknown / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 3.0), U.S. Capitol (Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress / Wikimedia), NYSE (Andy C / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 3.0)
