Opinion: Barack Obama’s Gary Hart moment?

The timing for Barack Obama could not have been worse. Just as he was closing the gap in a decisive Pennsylvania primary that could be a knockout blow against Hillary Clinton, Obama may have produced the unforgettable gaffe that derails his growing momentum in that state -- and beyond. Just ask Gary Hart. In late May and early June 1984, Hart was locked in a tight New Jersey primary contest he had to win to deny Mondale a first-ballot nomination at the Democratic convention the following month. At a California fundraiser eerily reminiscent of Obama’s this week, Hart and his wife Lee spoke with reporters at a Los Angeles event. In one moment of carelessness, Hart, too, struck a nerve with voters in a critical state. As Time magazine recalled: ‘In a classic campaign boner, he exposed his sarcastic side at a fund raiser in Los Angeles. The ‘bad news,’ he told a well-heeled audience standing on the lawn of a Bel Air mansion, is that he has to campaign apart from his wife Lee. ‘The good news for her is that she campaigns in California while I campaign in New Jersey.’ When Mrs. Hart interjected, ‘I got to hold a koala bear,’ Hart sniggered, ‘I won’t tell you what I got to hold: samples from a toxic-waste dump.’ Hart went from closing fast on Mondale in the Garden State to a decisive 15 point blowout a week later. Mondale went on to sew up the Democratic nomination thanks to the delegates he swept in New Jersey. The rest, as they say, is history.’ As I can personally attest, the impact of that one cataclysmic slight against the good people of New Jersey was lasting. I not only worked for Gary Hart in 1984, but was at the photo-op at the toxic waste dump in question. While hanging out at the Jersey shore the next summer, I was harangued by a woman who saw my ‘Gary Hart for President’ t-shirt. ‘I hate him,’ she said, ‘because he insulted our state.’