California’s political prince, Gary Hart, was a master class in integrity and humility

Last week, California lost a political prince.

Former state senator and assemblyman Gary K. Hart first ran for public office in 1970, as a 26-year-old anti-war candidate for Congress in Santa Barbara. Four years later, he was elected to the Assembly, beginning a legislative career that spanned 20 years. Hart left behind an enviable legacy of educational reforms and environmental protections.

For me, as a fresh UC Berkeley graduate who joined his staff in 1979, Hart was much more than his election wins and legislative achievements. He was a master class in how to be a political leader with integrity and humility.

Hart began his life in politics as one of the many young activists drawn to Allard Lowenstein, a quirky and charismatic New York lawyer who helped lead the anti-war effort to oust Lyndon Johnson from the White House in 1968. Hart liked to tell the story of Lowenstein sent him to the snows of New Hampshire with a “pocket full of dimes” and a phone list of left-leaning Democrats with the mission of starting a “Dump Johnson” movement.

But Hart felt his more important New Hampshire achievement was meeting his wonderful wife, Cary.

Hart didn’t shy away from meeting with his most skeptical constituents. I drove him to the town of Orcutt, in the heart of our district’s conservative Republican north county, in my battered blue Volkswagen Bug which had a “question authority” bumper sticker. Hart, who stood more than six feet tall, seemed less annoyed by the bad political optics of my Bug’s backside than by its utter lack of legroom.

In a constituent town hall, Hart was asked about his stance on the death penalty. It was pretty obvious, both from the conservative crowd and the way the question was asked, what the local view on the matter was. But he didn’t pander. He simply explained in plain language why he opposed the death penalty as a matter of conscience, and because, as a practical matter, it wasn’t a deterrent to violent crime.

Afterward, two attendees said that while they disagreed with Hart on several issues, they appreciated that he spoke to them and offered his honest reasoning. This was the political magic of Gary K. Hart — he could win people over who disagreed with him just by being sincere.

The collection of young people around Hart was sometimes more ambitious for his political future than he was. We wanted him to run for governor in 1986. I wrote him a long memo about why he should do it and how he could win.

When he decided against it, he sat me down and explained that the political demands of running for governor ran counter to the kind of leader he wanted to be. “They want me to be Bob Hope,” Hart told me. “And I don’t want to be Bob Hope.”

Years later, when he considered running for state superintendent of education, a job for which he was uniquely qualified, he backed away from that as well. Hart told us it was the last year before his daughter would be leaving for college and he didn’t want to lose that last year campaigning around the state. It was only much later when I had my own daughters and faced my last years with them at home that I fully appreciated his integrity.

On the day Hart died, I spoke with Joe Caves, the staffer who had spent more time with Hart than any of us. Caves told me how grateful he was to have Hart as a role model, demonstrating how to combine political effectiveness and decency.

We were all lucky to have had him as a role model.