NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2006
Gary Hart: Democrats Need Conviction
Ex-Presidential Candidate Says Party Needs To Speak To Voters
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Play CBS Video Video Gary Hart On 'Courage' Former democratic senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart says his party still needs more political courage. Hart discusses his book, "The Courage of Our Convictions," with Harry Smith.
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Former presidential candidate Gary Hart discusses his new book. (CBS/The Early Show)
But former Democratic senator from Colorado and presidential candidate Gary Hart says his party still needs more political courage. His new book "The Courage of Our Convictions: A Manifesto For Democrats" tries to move his party to find a new way to speak to America.
Hart, who dropped out of the presidential race in 1988 when an extramarital affair became public, opens the book with a quote from the medieval writer Dante, who said that there is a special place in hell for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserve their neutrality. It's something Hart said the Democrats are guilty of on issues of security and especially on the war in Iraq.
"There was a sense that to demonstrate that we were as committed to national security as Republicans, that many democratic leaders, elected officials, went along and voted for very questionable invasion," he told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith.
Hart said that since the Vietnam war, the Democrats have been adrift to some extent, lacking a definable issue.
"Since then, some of us have been making an effort to re-establish our credentials on national security and foreign policy," he said. "What I argue in the book is that we should go back to the basic principles of the party in the 20th century — under Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson — and extract from them some central principles, core beliefs that identify us distinctly from republicans and not fuzz up the difference and seek some center."
Hart says that a national election cannot be won without speaking to the middle and getting independent voters to identify with the Democratic party.
"This book was written because people would stop me on the street of Denver and say, 'What do the Democrats stand for? What do you believe?' " Hart said. "And it has been that sense of drift for 25 or 30 years that has caused people to say, 'I'm not quite sure who you and what your core beliefs are.' "
Part of the problem, Hart said, is that both the Democrats and Republicans are beholden to special interests and coddle lobbyists in exchange for financial support.
"Corruption was defined from the very beginning, including our own founders, as putting special interests ahead of the common good, and that's exactly what has happened in this country in the 20th century," he said. "By that definition of putting special interests first, we are a profoundly corrupt republic. Most Americans know that. And they want politicians to put the national interests first, not the party or the XYZ group."
To read an excerpt Hart posted on the Huffington Post, click here.
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- I see it as a marketing job. Democrats have got to show what they have done and what they can do. Talk to the people and find out what they want and form a plan to do it. Then say, elect us and we will do it and if we don't, you can hold us accountable.
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- I gave up on the Democrats. They have become absolutely hysterical. They know not what they do or say. They're for the war than against it. They have shown the most pathetic spineless leadership imaginable.
- Reply to this comment
- Your are so right Cathaleen. JFK would have been a whole lot cleverer in how he approach our current issues than sad GWB. It would be soooo nice to have an intelligent leader.
- Reply to this comment
- The problem with the Democrats is that they have to get their heads out of the sixties. The sixties are gone - everyone can vote, most classrooms are not segregated, Vietnam is over.
Please leave Kerry and the swiftboat behind.
Get rid of Howard Dean and anyone else that sounds
like they just walked out of a mental clinic. Stop the screaming.
We have new problems, Iraq, Afghanistan, Terror.
Every time the Democrats don't know the answer to a problem they go back to the blame game.
What happened to the party of John F. Kennedy that
was strong? I think it died with him and Bobby. - Reply to this comment
- Republicans have destroyed the country. If we were a corporation than Moody's wouldn't even give us a D rating for financial solubility.
for republicans it's the same old old. Give corporate welfare and taxcuts to billionaires and multi-millionaires, break unions, offshore jobs to China and India, and then blame the ever shrinking middle class on unions and Democrats - Reply to this comment
- Republicans have destroyed America. If we were a corporation than Moody's wouldn't even give us a D rating for financial solubility.
for republicans it's the same old same old. Give corporate welfare and taxcuts to billionaires and multi-millionaires, break unions, offshore jobs to China and India, and then blame the ever shrinking middle class on unions and Democrats - Reply to this comment
