Gary Hart was George McGovern’s campaign manager. A young Democrat in 1974, he ousted a serving Senator in Colorado, and embodied the new Democratic Party which had begun to emerge in the transparent, environmentally conscious technology- and policy-driven culture of the late nineteen seventies and early eighties. He served on one of the most consequential committees in modern congressional history—the Church Committee—which investigated and contributed to the abortive reform of America’s Intelligence agencies. An ‘Atari Democrat’ who promoted the semiconductor industry, Hart merged new politics with a grasp of the primary process, and came very close to snatching the Democratic nomination from a former vice-president anointed by the party’s establishment. Hart was one of a number of Democrats elected in the wake of the oil price shocks and Watergate who formed a bridge to the neoliberal Democratic leadership Council without completely breaking with the past. Instead, politic...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.