Gary Hart, Walter Mondale, and the impossible hypothetical
A good hypothetical question can reveal volumes about a candidate. Megyn Kelly's question to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush about the Iraq War ("Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?") and the one posed to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by David Axelrod ("Would you have had the same position...[on gun control] if you were representing Brooklyn?") both seemed to catch the candidates a little off guard.
But a hypothetical question posed by NBC Moderator John Chancellor during a 1984 Democratic debate in Atlanta might take the cake for one of the most specific, odd hypotheticals in recent memory.
Chancellor asked each candidate how he would respond if woken up at 2am in the White House to news that a Czech airliner had flown into U.S. air space and was headed toward our air defense command in Colorado Springs, refusing commands to turn back. Chancellor added that U.S. military forces had observed there were people in the plane.
Colorado Sen. Gary Hart was first up.
"If the people that they looked in and saw had uniforms on, I'd shoot the aircraft down," Hart said, to audience laughter. "If they were civilians, I'd just let it keep going."
Hart's response was mocked by his fellow contenders.
"You don't go up peeking into the windows," said fellow contender (and former Marine fighter pilot) John Glenn, a senator from Ohio.
"I think it's a wonderful hypothetical," said former Vice President Walter Mondale. "It's ridiculous."
But the middle-of-the night phone call is a familiar theme in Democratic primaries. In the 2008 campaign, then-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton famously ran an ad with one question: "It's 3:00 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?"
In another memorable quip from the same 1984 Democratic debate in Atlanta, Mondale attacked Hart's platform.
"When I hear your new ideas," Mondale turned to Hart, "I'm reminded of that ad, 'Where's the beef?' " referring to the popular Wendy's commercial.
The crowd in Atlanta's Fox Theater erupted in laughter.
"Wait a minute, he's going to tell you where the beef is," the debate moderator shouted over the audience with a smile.
It was a criticism that Hart couldn't a shake. The idea that his plans lacked substance plagued his campaign, despite the fact he had laid out solid details about his positions, especially by today's standards.
The mockery of Hart in the debate made it one of the most entertaining of the campaign season. As reporter Dan Balz wrote in the Washington Post the next day: "Perhaps the liveliest of the presidential debates to date."
