Hart: Kerry's experience would make him a good leader
Former candidate praises Senator's credentials
Thursday, November 6, 2003
By JENNIFER SKALKA
Monitor staff
Gary Hart, the former U.S. senator and two-time Democratic presidential candidate, believes voters shouldn't pick a president who has to learn on the job. They should choose someone, he said, who has the policy experience and knowledge of world affairs to handle his responsibilities from day one. That person, Hart told New Hampshire reporters yesterday, is Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.
"I have a peculiar if not unique outlook on the presidency, standards that I tried to hold myself to in my own campaigns," said Hart, who ran for president in 1984 and 1988. "And that was that one should not seek the presidency unless one is prepared to be president. Now, I know there's a lot of recent evidence to say that standard is not realistic, but nevertheless I persist in believing that the job is such and the importance of the job is such that learning on the job is not acceptable."
Hart formally endorsed Kerry last month, but he was in New Hampshire yesterday for the Concord sit-down with the media and a Manchester Kerry campaign event. The former senator, who pondered launching his own bid for the White House earlier this year, said that endorsements don't mean all that much. Still, he said he wanted to tell voters why Kerry should win the Democratic Party's nomination. And he didn't at all mind visiting the state that had given him some of his fondest memories - a come-from-behind 1984 primary victory among them.
Kerry, a three-term senator, may know Washington well, but he's also traveled the world to meet with foreign leaders and familiarize himself with various cultures, Hart said. Among the nine Democrats vying for the nomination, Kerry has the knowledge of international affairs that's necessary to lead the country in a post-Sept. 11 world.
"He's not only a veteran, but he's also a veteran of defense policy," Hart said.
Though Hart offered high praise for Kerry's ability to handle world affairs, he and the candidate differ on the central international issue of the 2004 contest so far: the war in Iraq. Hart, who co-authored an extensive report about the nation's homeland security, was a vocal opponent of the war. Kerry voted for the resolution that gave President Bush permission to go to war.
Yesterday, seated at a fold-up table in Kerry's Main Street office, Hart said that he and Kerry naturally wouldn't agree on every issue. He said, however, that he believes Kerry's vote "was based on conscience, not on politics." But he also said it's up to Kerry to explain his position on the resolution.
"I didn't agree with everything George McGovern did in office 30 years ago when I worked for him," Hart said. "And a lot of people supported me in this state and elsewhere who didn't agree with everything I had done."
Hart also criticized the Bush administration for misleading Congress and the American public. He said that the president and Vice President Dick Cheney told the public that Iraq had "tons and tons" of nuclear weapons, and now they can't find them.
"You cannot hide a nuclear weapons program," Hart said. "You simply cannot do it."
Hart also said the administration has used the congressional resolution "as a rubber stamp to do whatever they want to do." And he said Bush will lose the 2004 election if he doesn't internationalize the war effort.
As for former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who has held the top spot in New Hampshire polls since the summer and is shaping up as Kerry's chief competition, Hart said "he has played the outsider well." Dean's bluntness is appealing to some voters, Hart said, but 90 days is a long time, enough time for the world and the political world to change dramatically. To challenge Dean effectively, Hart said Kerry needs to play up his experience.
"Candidates do peak and sometimes they do peak too soon," Hart said.