United States Senator
In 1974, Hart ran for the United States Senate, challenging two-term incumbent Republican Peter Dominick. Hart was aided by the state's trend towards Democrats during the early 1970s, as well as Dominick's continued support for the unpopular President Richard Nixon and concerns about the Senator's age and health. In the general election, Hart won by a wide margin (57.2% to Dominick's 39.5%) and was immediately labeled as a rising star. He got a seat on the Armed Services Committee and was an early supporter of reforming the bidding for military contracts, and also was an advocate the military using smaller, more mobile weapons and equipment, as opposed to the traditional large scale items. He also served on the Environment and Public Work Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
In 1980, he sought a second term. In something of a surprise, his Republican opponent was Colorado Secretary of State Mary Estill Buchanan, a moderate candidate who had defeated the more conservative choice, Howard "Bo" Callaway in the party primary. Fourteen years earlier, Callaway had been the Republican gubernatorial nominee in his native Georgia. Hart distanced himself from U.S. President Jimmy Carter, a former Georgia political rival of Callaway's. Carter's weak showing in Colorado nearly cost Hart reelection, but he prevailed 51 to 49 percent over Buchanan.
Read more about this topic: Gary Hart
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states and/or senator:
“On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my childrens children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
—William Howard Taft (18571930)
“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. A Galileo could no more be elected President of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of soft illusion.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“By intervening in the Vietnamese struggle the United States was attempting to fit its global strategies into a world of hillocks and hamlets, to reduce its majestic concerns for the containment of communism and the security of the Free World to a dimension where governments rose and fell as a result of arguments between two colonels wives.”
—Frances Fitzgerald (b. 1940)
“Michael Corleone: My father is no different than any powerful man. Any man whos responsible for other people. Like a senator or a president.
Kaye: Do you know how naive you sound?
Michael Corleone: Why?
Kaye: Senators and presidents dont have men killed.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)