Gary Hart Still Denies Daring Press to Catch Him

Bob Kerrey thinks The New York Times is in the tank for Obama -- not that he minds.

The former Democratic senator from Nebraska was here at the Condé Nast building this morning, along with his colleague Gary Hart, to talk about how the press has covered the current presidential election. They were interviewed by New Yorker writer Ken Auletta as part of a breakfast series sponsored by Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Kerrey, who's now president of The New School, claimed that "the big unreported story" of the election cycle "is the tremendous spending advantage Obama's got. If everything else is equal, and it's not equal in this race, but if everything else is equal, McCain hasn't got a chance."

Asked why he thinks the story isn't getting adequate coverage, he responded, "There's a liberal bias. There's a preference for Obama and it's getting underreported as a result."

Then Kerrey got specific.

"If this thing was running the other way, if Obama was taking the public money and McCain had opted out and raised $150 million in September, do you think The New York Times would have an editorial against it? Do you think any of their columnists -- do you think Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich would write anything at all about that? The answer is yes."

(Actually, Dowd has mentioned it: She wrote that "Obama, in rejecting public financing, is not going to be a chump.")

Later, Hart -- who joked, "I was the first white Obama" -- lamented the collapse of the trust that once existed between politicians and political reporters. Ever since the political press started digging into politicians' private lives in the late 1980s, he said, "There's no natural give-and-take," and newsmakers don't trust journalists to keep anything off the record.

Of course, that trend arguably began with the exposure of Hart's own private life by the Miami Herald, which caught him having a sleepover with Donna Rice. Auletta asked if, in retrospect, the Herald's reporting was fair. Hart's response:

First of all , the infamous photograph [of Rice sitting on his lap, published in the National Enquirer] came out after I had gotten out of the race, not before. Second, while we're on the subject, I will take the occasion to say I never dared or challenged the press to follow me. Full stop. But that myth perpetuates. I invited one reporter, E.J. Dionne, to accompany me on my daily rounds. What happened was a newspaper in America put me under surreptitious surveillance well before the so-called challenge. Now I don't know a time in American history -- maybe Bob does -- when a newspaper or news organizations set out secretly surveilling a presidential candidate, including in their home, and including looking in their windows and following them. That's what was going on.

For the record, Hart's exact words were: "Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'd be very bored."

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