Gary Hart

Imagine if Richard Nixon had appeared on nationwide television in late 1974 to say that he had messed up during the Watergate scandal but still wanted to play an important role in public life. Calling himself a "patriot," saying that it was sinful to hide out at San Clemente, Mr. Nixon would have pledged to address one of the most important issues of the times - the excesses of the post-Watergate morality. He would have been laughed back into oblivion. Yet Gary Hart, just four months after his political career was destroyed by a scandal of a different kind and dimension, is ready to return to the hustings.

Never has an act of "contrition" received as much advance publicity as Gary Hart's proclaimed act of repentance on "Nightline. " ABC plugged it as if it were the network's first offering of the new fall television season. There was "Father" Ted Koppel hearing the public confession of the fallen parishioner. It was more than a little much. The sad truth is that Hart still does not seem to understand the issue. He apologized to supporters for letting them down. That's just good politics.

Even from behind, the tall figure was easy to recognize. Shoulders scrunched up, thick, graying hair neatly blow-dried, suit elegantly cut. Gary Hart was walking alone through a hotel corridor toward a bar and restaurant. There was nothing remarkable about his being there. Except the fact that at that very moment, only a few blocks away, the Democratic convention was beginning. Most of the big Democrats were in the convention hall. But Gary Hart was walking into the almost-deserted barroom and joining a few acquaintances in a booth.

Another arrow hit Gary Hart when his publisher announced Tuesday that it had scuttled plans to publish his autobiography, One Man's Luck. A spokeswoman for publisher William Morrow & Co. said yesterday that Luck was supposed to be a "get-to-know-the-candidate book and both Gary and us agreed that it no longer made any sense" to do it now that he has quit the presidential race. The spokeswoman said that Hart had gotten "a very, very small advance" about a year ago and that the publisher, as is the custom in such cancellations, probably would ask for the money back.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy had a historic point to prove: that a Roman Catholic could be elected president of the United States. He proved it, and in so doing, he dismissed the anti-Catholic prohibition from national political life for good. In 1976, Jimmy Carter had nearly as important a point to prove. It was that a virtually unknown peanut farmer from rural Georgia could burst upon the national scene, capture the nomination of the Democratic Party and be elected president. He proved that early name recognition is not all it's cracked up to be. At the onset of Campaign '88, Hart has announced the most improbable challenge of recent presidential history.

Political consultant Mel Nasielski slipped $15,000 in traveler's checks into a scuffed brown briefcase on Wednesday and boarded a plane for San Francisco. His mission: to bring home a computerized list of donors to the 1984 campaign of former presidential candidate Gary Hart. Today, Nasielski will do just that - after forking out a mere $6,500 for a campaign tool that may reap thousands of dollars in profits for his direct mail firm. Nasielski, 32, executive vice president of Allan and Nasielski in West Conshohocken, claimed his prize yesterday at an auction hosted by U.S. marshals in San Francisco.

Appearing in debate with his Democratic rivals for the first time here last night, presidential candidate Gary Hart called himself "a sinner" and pledged that his public ethics would be beyond reproach if elected to the White House. Hart was not attacked by his opponents during the debate, which was surprisingly bland and amiable all around, considering that the first-in-the- nation Iowa caucuses were only 24 days away. It was an evening characterized by respectful questioning, gentle ribbing and inside jokes among candidates who have grown ever-more familiar with one another.

I don't know why Gary Hart has become so huffy with the press. The fact is, until he made a fool of himself by chasing around with a young ex-beauty queen, the press had been rather kind. It's been known for a long time that he is a compulsive skirt-chaser, but nobody really said anything about it. The attitude was if he wanted to mess around, that was his business. And it would still be his business if he hadn't been so careless or arrogant or self-destructive as to make it the public's business.

Gary Hart emerged from four months of seclusion to tell the nation that he wants to start a "constructive debate" about the private lives of public figures. With his declaration of non-candidacy, that debate may well be the principal legacy of Gary Hart's public life. So let's try a few propositions - sorry about that turn of phrase, senator - on for size. Is the press eager to pry behind the closed doors of the rich and famous? Absolutely. One of the inevitable consequences of being well-known is that people want to know more, even when it is none of their business.

Seven years ago in Washington, a bunch of us, three reporters, a politician, an actor and two of our wives, began talking about an old movie called Sullivan's Travels. I was working on a book, traveling across the country interviewing people, and the actor said it reminded him of the film. He described Sullivan's Travels, which was made in 1942. Joel McCrea played a famous director of comedies who tried to rise above the unsatisfying tinsel of Hollywood by going across America disguised as a bum. The idea was that no one would know him; he would learn about "the people," and then tell their story - make a great film, not a comedy, about the great issues of life and death, wealth and poverty.

In 1987, Jeff Greenfield, a former speechwriter for Bobby Kennedy turned journalist, was asked what his advice would be were he on the staff of Gary Hart. At the time, the former senator from Colorado was the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president. Amid rumors of his womanizing, he had challenged the press to follow him - proclaiming that they'd be very "bored. " Sure enough, a sex scandal erupted. Greenfield said he would tell Hart that, considering the breadth of his ideas, legislative accomplishments, and temperament, he was uniquely qualified to be president.

Here comes the character issue again. But it's not what you think. This time the focus is on Sen. Richard G. Lugar, the erudite Republican from Indiana who is running for president. Like everyone else, he brought the character spotlight on himself. But he's not reluctant to talk about character (his own), and he has a novel verdict (it's good). Of all the campaign tactics that have been trotted out over the years, this may be the most remarkable. A man stands up and says he is honest.

High above this resort city, just two miles from the Convention Center where Democrats once battled, a distinguished-looking man in pin-striped suit sits in the Presidential Suite of the Doral hotel, the center of attention at a breakfast conference. Around the table, a few journalists pepper him with questions about the latest White House news and hottest political developments. The opinions come fast and fluidly: Ross Perot is "clearly vacillating. " One of the biggest "barriers to reform is to personalize everything.

GARY HART ON LIFE AFTER THE FALL The wife of a prominent Washington journalist told me the other day that everyone in Washington thinks Bill Clinton never would have been elected president without Gary Hart. Maybe. The idea is that I somehow carried away the burden of scandal. . . . The hardest adjustment was having a platform for 12 years and then having it disappear overnight. See, you don't have to be president to have a platform, but when you lose you've lost your platform.

Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito did the Nippon equivalent of giving his intended an engagment ring yesterday when he sent Masako Owada ceremonial gifts that included five rolls of silk, six bottles of rice wine and some plump male and female fish - fresh. After the stuff was given to her and her parents on live TV by the grand master of Naruhito's household, Owada - in a pale yellow kimono with an orange sash tied in a big back bow - bowed deeply, as did her folks, and she uttered: "I humbly accept.

Screenwriter Alvin Sargent and producer Laura Ziskin were sitting around their house watching TV coverage of the '88 election, when the idea for Hero dawned on them. In the Capraesque comedy, which opened around the country Friday, Dustin Hoffman plays a weaselly thief who, in spite of himself, saves all 54 passengers aboard a crashed airliner. Then he wanders off into the stormy night, and someone else takes credit for the heroic deed. Geena Davis, an ace TV newswoman who was one of the plane's survivors, latches onto the impostor (played by Andy Garcia)

You can do what you please, but we're going to ignore Tuesday's presidential primary in Connecticut. Connecticut is a weird little state that never has been able to quite figure out who's on first. In 1984, remember, it delivered a landslide for Gary Hart just one week before the Colorado Philanderer was decapitated by Walter "Where's the Beef" Mondale in New York. (So much for the argument that Connecticut is so blue-nosed as to be unusually prissy about Bill Clinton's escapades.

Like many Philadelphians, Channel 10 anchor Larry Kane cried when he heard that former Mayor Frank Rizzo had died suddenly Tuesday. "It was like a death in the family," says Kane, 48. "I've known him for 25 years. It was very difficult to compose myself. Whether you disagreed with him or not, Rizzo affected you. He was bigger than life. This is the roughest death I've ever had to cover, without question. " Despite Rizzo's tough-guy image with the media, Kane says, "he was one of the great puppy dogs of life.

It would be much easier to wax enthusiastic about the extraordinary restoration and renovation of 30th Street Station, if parking there didn't require taking out a second mortgage. Gone are the days when you could pull up, drop a quarter into a meter and go into the station to meet an incoming train. Now, no matter how brief your visit, it can cost you a couple of bucks, unless you park a block or two away - not always possible in that crowded neighborhood and not always practical if the person you're meeting has a lot of luggage.

I guess it's just the contrariness in my nature. Six months ago, with President Bush riding higher in the polls than Marion Barry in a hotel suite, I was writing about the potential dangers facing a leader who believed in nothing more fundamental than good manners. Now the shells are exploding all around George Bush. A combination of war jitters, bad economic news and a budget farce highlighted by presidential firmness of the wet noodle variety have put a gleam back in Democratic eyes, a new bounce in their step.