Reply #239: WOW! Another smear campaign! No facts and all make believe!

[Hart2008]

In 1972, Sen. Edmund Muskie dropped out over a fake letter on his letterhead, which had been stolen.

Was Muskie spineless too?

Maybe we should recognize that dirty pool happens in out primaries, and usually it is directed against the candidate the GOP fears the most in the general elections!

Prior to Hart, the media didn't intrude into the private lives of political figures.

FDR died with his mistress.

JFK's exploits are well known.

Ronald Reagan was the first divorced president and no one asked why his marriage failed.

Then Gary Hart looks like a shoe in to win the presidency and the rules were changed on him after he had announced his candidacy. He had to deal with reporters hiding in his bushes and the CNN helicopter hovering over his house. His family had to hang sheets in their windows to keep the media from trying to look inside. No candidate should be required to endure that kind of harassment.

Bill Clinton had it easier four years later because the "new" rules had been formed. Clinton could learn from what happened to Hart. Still Clinton's comeback in New Hampshire came from promising people tax cuts which he couldn't deliver. Clinton was the first president in history to break a campaign promise before taking the oath of office.

Lastly, while the media circus over his personal life did cause him to suspend his campaign, he did return to lead the national polls in December 1987 only to have another false story about his campaign having been "secretly financed" printed on the eve of the Iowa caucuses. It was that story which ultimately sank his 1988 campaign, and it was 100% false. Hart had mortgaged his house to run in 1984, but he never took a dime in PAC money. That is what happens to a man in Washington who refuses to be corrupted by the money. They just lie about him so much that he can't correct all of the lies.