Former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart emerged from his home on Troublesome Gulch the week before last to make an appearance at the Denver Press Club. The occasion was a signing for his latest book, “The American Republic Can Save American Democracy.” The author of a dozen previous tomes assessing the state of political affairs in our American republic, the senator’s insight reminded his audience of the missed possibilities during his failed pair of presidential campaigns. No longer the heartthrob of his early career, Hart shows the accumulated mileage of his 85 years in the arena, yet his acumen and wit remain as sharp as ever. He wryly noted that America is a country where any boy or girl can achieve their aspirations. “I even understand,” he noted with a wink, “that some are even elected president.”

I first met Gary during his Senate race in 1974, only a few years after my arrival in Colorado. All I really knew about Hart was that he had been the manager of George McGovern’s losing presidential campaign in 1972. As a Senate candidate, he was attempting to topple the well-regarded Republican incumbent, Peter Dominick, in a long-shot campaign following a fractious Democratic primary. The Hart campaign was sufficiently disorganized that I landed myself a volunteer position as back-up speechwriter.

I was usually assigned brief tasks drafting greetings to civic clubs and morning coffee klatches. Most remembered, however, was an attempt to introduce Gary at a foreign affairs debate scheduled for Montview Presbyterian in Denver’s Park Hill. What transpired there proved the turning point in a contest that propelled Hart into the ranks of the “Atari Democrats” in the Senate. After reviewing my suggested opening remarks, Gary told me a Senate campaign was, “…not an oratorical contest.” Still on the sunny side of 30, I was cheeky enough to reply, “perhaps it should be.”

Gary chuckled, using a few bullet points from my draft in his opening statement, and the debate was underway. Sen. Dominick gave the crowd of several hundred the impression he was severely inebriated, slurring his words and repeatedly speaking out of turn. His condition was evident enough that the Dominick campaign issued a statement the next day explaining he had been speaking under the influence of painkillers prescribed for back spasms. But the real damage to his campaign was inflicted by a response to an audience question, wholly unprompted by any of my clever suggestions.

The inquiry from an African-American voter asked what the American role should be in offering support to African countries afflicted by famine, Dominick replied with what he surely thought would be a humorous quip. He said he opposed “…wasting taxpayer dollars on places where they prefer to eat each other than eat our food.”  The precise phrasing escapes me after half-a-century, but the senator elicited a gasp of disbelief throughout the room. His campaign subsequently entered a downward spiral from which it was unable to recover.

A youthful Democrat wearing polished $400 cowboy boots appealed to voters across a state with the then-youngest average age in the nation. Years later, I welcomed Presidential candidate Gary Hart as Denver Democratic Party Chairman upon his return to Colorado from his 1984 victory in the New Hampshire primary. We appeared on the front page of the Rocky Mountain News as I gifted him a chromed shower head (Vice-President Walter Mondale had called his loss to Hart a “cold shower” the previous day).

Hart’s current cri de coeur essay is premised on his belief the democratic election mechanisms referenced by “…the Republic for which it stands” in the “Pledge of Allegiance” to the American flag can provide sufficient protections against emerging threats to American democracy. This is not a newfound conviction for the senator but is rooted in his Ph.D. dissertation submitted to Oxford University that explores the uniquely American political and philosophical underpinnings of the “democratic Republic” originally conceived by Thomas Jefferson. Hart writes, “the essence of democracy is the preeminence of the popular vote, and the guarantee of the popular vote is the sovereignty of people, not state legislatures beholden to a party or faction.”

At the Press Club, Hart frequently mentioned the reply popularly attributed to Ben Franklin when asked what kind of government had been approved at the Constitutional Convention, “a republic, if you can keep it.” When the former senator notes the recent “purge” of moderates within the Republican party, he highlights a sense of urgency about what Americans have at risk. Hart’s faith in the ultimate wisdom of voters can be questioned, particularly in the 18 states where 2020 results are still being contested. Amber McReynolds, Colorado’s election maven, points out that Colorado’s 80% voter participation, when compared against 60% for Texas, results directly from election policy — nothing more, nothing less.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.