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<snip> Hart officially declared his candidacy on April 13, 1987.<4> Rumors began circulating nearly immediately that Hart was having an extramarital affair. In an interview that appeared in the New York Times on May 3, 1987, Hart responded to the rumors by daring the press corps: "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."<5> The Miami Herald had been investigating Hart's rumored womanizing for weeks before the "dare" appeared in the New York Times. Two reporters from the Miami Herald had staked out his residence and observed an attractive young woman coming out of Hart's Washington, D.C., townhouse on the evening of May 2. The Herald published the story on Sunday, May 3, the same day Hart's dare appeared in print, and the scandal spread rapidly through the national media. Hart and his allies attacked the Herald for rushing the story into print, claiming that it had unfairly judged the situation without finding out the true facts. Hart claimed that the reporters had not watched both entrances to his home and could not have seen when the young woman entered and left the building. The Miami Herald reporter had flown to Washington, D.C. on the same flight as the woman, identified as Donna Rice. Hart was dogged with questions regarding his views on marital infidelity. In public, his wife, Lee, supported him, claiming the relationship with the young woman was innocent.<6> A poll of voters in New Hampshire for the New Hampshire Primary showed that Hart's support had dropped in half, from 32% to 17%, placing him suddenly ten points behind Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. On May 5, the Herald received a further tip that Hart had spent a night in Bimini on a yacht called the Monkey Business with a woman who was not his wife. The Herald obtained photographs of Hart aboard the Monkey Business with then-29-year-old model Donna Rice, sitting in over-50 year-old Hart's lap. The photographs were subsequently published in the National Enquirer. On May 8, 1987, a week after the Donna Rice story broke, Hart dropped out of the race. At a press conference, he lashed out at the media, saying "I said that I bend, but I don't break, and believe me, I'm not broken." A Gallup Poll found that nearly two-thirds (64%) of the U.S. respondents it surveyed thought the media treatment of Hart was "unfair." A little over half (53%) responded that marital infidelity had little to do with a president's ability to govern. Not everyone was impressed with Hart's diatribe against the press. Television writer Paul Slansky noted that Hart had tried to deflect blame from himself for his downfall to the media, and that he offered no apology to betrayed supporters who now suddenly had to find other candidates to back. To many observers, the press conference was redolent of Richard Nixon's "Last Press Conference" of November 7, 1962, in which Nixon blamed the media for his loss in the 1962 California gubernatorial election. Hart, in fact, received a letter from Nixon himself commending him for "handling a difficult situation uncommonly well."
In December 1987, Hart returned to the race, declaring "Let's let the people decide!" He competed in the New Hampshire primary and received 4,888 votes, approximately 4%. After the Super Tuesday contests on March 8, he withdrew from the campaign a second time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Hart
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THE WATCH
Saturday dawned as a bright spring day, warm with the scent of flowers in the air. The neighborhood around Hart's townhouse awoke early.
In the early hours, Clifton watched the front while McGee watched the back street.
Investigations Editor Savage, photographer Smith and reporter Fiedler caught pre-dawn flights to Washington and discussed their objectives during the flight. Fiedler circled a passage in a New York Times Magazine article slated for Sunday publication and handed it to Savage.
“Follow me around, I don't care, ” Hart was quoted as saying. “I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'd be very, bored. ”
They arrived in Washington at 10:05 a.m. and reached the street in front of Hart's townhouse about 11. Smith and Savage parked on opposite corners with a clear view of Hart's car, but a partially obstructed view of the front door. Fiedler parked on the street behind the townhouse, where he could watch the alley entrance.
The reporters considered it crucial that at least one other staff member identify Hart and the woman to confirm what McGee had seen the night before.
Later, Hart denounced the watch as “spotty. ” McGee was alone while Clifton went for the car Friday night, no one was watching the townhouse from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., the back entrance wasn't covered at all time, and the view of the front door was sometimes blocked.
The reporters never considered the stakeout airtight. The words “around the clock” surveillance were struck from the story’s initial draft.
“It’s possible” the woman could have slipped out of the house, Savage later told The New York Times.
In midafternoon, there was a flurry of activity outside the Hart townhouse involving a maroon sedan that double-parked in front. Smith hurriedly took up pursuit of the car.
It traveled a few blocks and parked in front of a church. A couple - - definitely not Hart and the blond woman - - got out. “False alarm, ” Smith said.
THE DISCOVERY
At 8:40 p.m., the front of the townhouse was bathed in the orange glow of security lighting. The back street remained dark, shaded by large trees. McGee strolled toward the rear alley driveway.
He stopped in his tracks as he saw Hart and the blond woman emerge from the alley that led to Hart's garage entrance. McGee turned on his heels, picked up his pace, walked past the alley and headed toward the corner where Hart's car was parked.
As he rounded the corner, Fiedler, who had changed into a running outfit, jogged by him. “He's right behind me, ” McGee whispered hoarsely. Fiedler, who knows Hart from the campaign trail, crossed the street to the park to avoid recognition.
Hart's hands were thrust in his pockets, and he looked rapidly about the neighborhood. The blond woman clutched his right arm as they walked.
Hart appeared on guard. He walked a few feet, stopped, then walked on. When he and the woman reached his car, instead of getting inside, they turned and retreated down the block and into the front entrance.
“He might have recognized me from last night, ” McGee told Savage.
Minutes later, Hart emerged alone, strode directly to his car, got in and pulled into traffic. Smith, the photographer, followed Hart in his car.
Hart went only a few blocks more before parking and walking back toward his block, although not directly. He walked down a side street, turned a corner and promptly sat down. Clifton, following about 50 feet behind him, turned the corner and encountered Hart looking directly at him. Clifton continued on.
Hart again circled the block, this time approaching his townhouse toward his front door. He walked directly past the car in which McGee and Savage sat. To them, he seemed agitated. He appeared to yell over his shoulder toward someone on the other side of the street.
When Hart entered the alley behind his townhouse, Savage turned to McGee. “I think we should talk to him right now. ” Hart clearly knew he was being watched.
“It's your call, ” Savage said.
“Let's do it, ” said McGee.
http://www.unc.edu/~pmeyer/Hart/hartarticle.html ______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Newspaper Stakeout Infuriates Hart Report on Female House Guest Called 'Character Assassination' By James R. Dickenson and Paul Taylor Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, May 4, 1987; Page A01
<snip>
The Miami Herald reported yesterday that a news team that staked out Democratic presidential front-runner Gary Hart's Capitol Hill town house determined that a young woman from Miami spent Friday night and Saturday with him while his wife was in Denver.
Hart, whose campaign has been debating for three weeks how to deal with questions of alleged "womanizing," denounced the story as "preposterous" and "inaccurate." He said he is the victim of "character assassination" by unethical and "outrageous" journalism that is "reduced to hiding in bushes, peeking in windows and personal harassment."
The paper, which spread the story across the top of its front page, said that a team of five Herald and Knight-Ridder reporters kept the front and rear entrances of Hart's town house under surveillance from Friday evening until Saturday night, except for a period between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. They said they saw Hart and the woman enter the house about 11:15 p.m. Friday and saw no one leave or enter until Hart and the woman came out at about 8:40 p.m. Saturday.
Members of the Herald team said they would have seen anyone entering or leaving the house during those hours, except for the predawn period. According to one of them, they "napped" during that time.
Approached by the reporters later Saturday night, Hart denied having any "personal relationship" with the woman, denied that she had spent the night at his house and said that she had come to Washington to visit friends. He said that the woman, identified by the Hart campaign as Donna Rice, was in his town house for only a few minutes and that she and a female friend from Miami had stayed at the home of William Broadhurst, a Washington attorney and friend of Hart. Telephones at Broadhurst's office and home were not answered yesterday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/tours/scandal/hart.htm
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