In Front, but for How Long?

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Even in the era of the perpetual presidential campaign, 34 months before election is too early for a formal announcement of candidacy. But it is not too soon to bow out of an intervening race that would at best be a distraction and at worst a danger. So Gary Hart, 49, widely regarded as the early front runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination--at least since the withdrawal last month of Ted Kennedy--took that inevitable first step. On Saturday he announced that he will not run to retain his U.S. Senate seat from Colorado in 1986.

It was a fairly splashy declaration of noncandidacy. For two days before the event, Hart welcomed reporters to his newly acquired 150-acre mountain retreat on Troublesome Gulch Road, an unpaved trail half an hour west of Denver. Sprawled in an easy chair beside a crackling fire in the parlor of what was once a log cabin (it has been embellished by stone additions), Hart discoursed to TIME on the national campaign he was not exactly starting yet, while his wife Lee served coffee and cookies to TV crews in the kitchen. To some 250 supporters gathered at the nearby El Rancho Restaurant on Saturday, he said of his retirement from the Senate, "It is time for me to express my commitment to our state and to our nation in other ways, and perhaps on a farther horizon." That did not mean, he stressed, that he is an official candidate for the White House. But "does it mean I still have an interest in being President? Yup."

The statement was reasonably candid, but not completely so. Hart, one of those rare politicians who seem to be more powerful nationally than in their home state, did not acknowledge that he might have lost a bid for a third Senate term. Colorado has turned more conservative since Hart squeaked through to a Senate re-election in 1980 with just 50% of the vote. Polls have given him only a shaky lead over Congressman Ken Kramer, a likely Republican senatorial candidate. Even a victorious Senate run would be a financial drain on Hart, who still has to pay off $3.5 million in debts from his 1984 White House drive.

Nationally, with Kennedy out, Hart is by far the best known of the potential Democratic presidential candidates, and the only one who has already fought a coast-to-coast campaign. That drive left him with supporters in every state, whom he can begin early to shape into the kind of national organization he had to jerry-build from scratch in 1984. But Hart is also the only candidate bearing scars from the last race. Organized labor, a powerful force in the party, has not forgiven his attacks on "special interests" backing his ultimately successful rival for the presidential nomination, Walter Mondale. In addition, he struck many voters as a paradoxical combination of cold, aloof technocrat and movie star manque who let his unexpected victories in early primaries go to his head.

"The key is the message," Hart says, outlining the lessons he has drawn from 1984. "I'm more convinced than ever that it's not personality or charisma or endorsements or even money. It's message: to say something that people are waiting to hear and want to hear, and that makes sense, and that inspires." The core of his message is that the U.S. economy is "headed off a cliff," that strong federal intervention is needed to keep it from toppling over, but that the spending programs advocated by traditional Democrats will not do the job. Mondale's mocking cry of "Where's the beef?" obviously still rings in Hart's ears. He intends more than ever to campaign as the candidate of "new ideas," mostly related to the economy, and this time to convince voters that those ideas contain plenty of beef in the form of specifics. In speeches (delivered in 30 states last year alone), position papers, Senate bills and a forthcoming book about military reform, Hart is offering proposals on a variety of issues. Samples:

A Democratic budget, to be offered as an alternative to whatever Ronald Reagan proposes for fiscal 1987. It will contain some spending cuts, but also a higher corporate minimum tax and higher rates on upper-income individuals than are proposed in the current tax-reform bill. To reduce budget deficits, says Hart, "there will have to be additional revenue. Anybody who tells the truth in Washington will tell you that."

A "new system of national service, including both military and nonmilitary opportunities," to be required of young men and women for a period of 12 to 18 months. Achieving the military force called for by many experts will require some form of compulsory service by the early 1990s, Hart believes, but the nation will not tolerate an old-style draft with its inevitable inequities.

A trade bill providing for a world monetary conference to bring currency exchange rates back into line, export-promotion measures, and new penalties against blatantly unfair practices by American trading partners, but no outright protectionism. If these and other proposals seem designed to rub against the grain of a largely contented electorate, that is no accident. Hart concedes that "there has to be a unifying theme" to his ideas, and he is currently pushing the slogan of a "true patriotism" that requires a "belief in deferred gratification, not materialism." Those are not exactly barn-burning appeals, as Hart acknowledges, but then, in his words, "I'm not a traditional politician."

Can he nonetheless be a successful one? It is far too early to tell, but he certainly will not lack for competition. The 1988 race will be the first in 20 years in which no incumbent President will be running, and so it could be wide open in both parties. On the Democratic side, New York Governor Mario Cuomo, Senators Joseph Biden of Delaware, Bill Bradley of New Jersey and Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt and former Virginia Governor Charles Robb are all potential rivals. None can yet match Hart's name recognition, but for that very reason any of them could become what Hart was in 1984 and cannot be again: an exciting new face. As one political expert notes, the fact that Hart is well known is his biggest advantage, but also his biggest disadvantage. In any case, the list of hopefuls doubtless will undergo both additions and subtractions even before the 1988 campaign starts in earnest. Which most probably will be Nov. 5, the day after this year's midterm elections. --By George J. Church. Reported by Laurence I. Barrett/Denver and Hays Gorey/Washington

With reporting by Reported by Laurence I. Barrett/Denver, Hays Gorey/Washington