Hart dodges the question of running for president

DENVER -- Fifteen years after withdrawing from his second presidential bid and quietly settling back into private law practice, Gary Hart has found his voice again.

Frustrated because people didn't listen to his warnings about terrorist attacks and worried about the future of the nation, Hart has done nothing to turn away attention generated when he hinted that he may seek the Democratic presidential nomination again.

Refusing to comment about his political future, he declined to say when he will make a decision.

"You're either on the field or you're on the sidelines, and the only way you get on the field is either to be appointed to office or to run for office," Hart said from the 18th floor of his downtown law office.

"And if you've got something to say and some ideas that you think you want to have heard, how do you get the word out? I've been making speeches on security, but I've got other things to say."

Hart, 66, long has been considered by other politicians and analysts as an intelligent policy expert with intriguing ideas, but few believe he is seriously considering a run for president in 2004, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

"Surely at this time he recognizes he's nothing more than Don Quixote tilting at a Democratic windmill," Sabato said.

Hart represented Colorado in the U.S. Senate for two terms ending in 1987. He ran for president in 1983 and 1987.

In 1987, Hart withdrew from the presidential race after reporters spotted him at a Washington town house with model Donna Rice, then 29.

Forgiven, not forgotten

While many supporters might have forgiven Hart, few have forgotten, Denver political analyst Floyd Ciruli said.

Hart would have a difficult time assembling the complex machinery of a presidential campaign, Ciruli said.

Since leaving politics, Hart returned with Lee, his wife of 44 years, to his home in the Rocky Mountain foothills community of Troublesome Gulch west of Denver and to an international law practice, where he specializes in energy regulation and project finance.

He has written numerous nonfiction books, most recently "Restoration of the Republic: The Jeffersonian Ideal in 21st-Century America," and a mystery novel, "The Double Man," co-authored with former Sen. William Cohen, R-Maine.

Studying vulnerability

In 1998, Cohen, then President Clinton's defense secretary, appointed Hart and former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., as co-chairs of a commission to study the country's vulnerabilities.

The commission reported well before Sept. 11, 2001, that the United States was likely to be the victim of a catastrophic terrorist attack. In January 2001, it recommended creation of a homeland security agency to combine security and defense functions then spread among more than a dozen agencies.

Few listened, and Hart grew increasingly frustrated as President Bush first opposed legislation to create such a department and then proposed his own version last summer.

Even with the creation of the new security department and other changes, Hart said Americans are little safer than before the attacks, and elected officials are not doing enough to educate people and improve security.

Hart spends his time speaking to groups around the country, mostly on national security and defense issues, and tells listeners that job security, environmental security and community strength are just as important to the nation's future.

"My goal in life isn't to make money, never was," he said. "It isn't to be rich, it isn't to have a lot of clothes, it isn't to eat fine food, it isn't to join the country club, it's always been about public service. It's the only thing other than my family I care about."