The Front Runner

Everybody Knows
or
Hart the Herald Scriveners Zing

Every review of a movie is an opinion-piece, by its very nature. 

This one, however, is of, for, and by...opinion and is, as such, suffused with it. Like politicians, one shouldn't put too much trust in it. Proceed with caution. 

One wonders what would be the reason to make and release The Front Runner at this time other than as an exercise in nostalgia. Jason Reitman (second film released in a year—the first was Tully) has made a film based on the 1987 scandal that ruined the campaign of Senator Gary Hart, while he was running for president. Said scandal involved the Senator being linked with a woman not his wife, a practice that had been overlooked in the past, but, at that time, was not only not overlooked but blared in the nation's headlines. 

One could almost call the scandal quaint in this day and age, when the current President pays off porn-stars, admits it, then denies it, then probably brags about it when the microphones are off (are they?) then denies that he said it even when the tapes show up (Really, now, does this seem sane to you?). But, it isn't quaint. It's the age-old story of abuse of power and betrayal of trust. In this day and age, it has a hash-tag followed by "MeToo."

But, that year, many factors were in play. The Watergate scandal of the early 70's had put the public on alert to the duplicity of it's leaders, while the press, most of whom took no lead in the uncovering of the Watergate break-in and resulting White House cover-up were on high alert to any wrong-doing—that is, any wrong-doing that didn't hurt their access or financial stability. It had long been a standard practice among reporters to look away at the suspected infidelities of Presidents—certainly with FDR, Kennedy and Johnson. It was an "understanding" that such things were to be kept out of the press. After all, "the press" were equally capable of transgressing, such as Washington Post reporter and Watergate investigator Carl Bernstein's cheating on his wife Nora Ephron. What was good for the goose was not necessarily good for the gander who was trying to dig up dirt on the goose. 

Gary Hart was another matter. He was a senator who'd made a run for Democratic nominee for President in 1984 and lost to Walter Mondale. In 1987, after Mondale lost to Ronald Reagan, he was considered "the front-runner" for the nomination in the next year's presidential race, and it was assumed he'd get the nomination. Then, the events on board the private yacht "Monkey Business" happened. 

Now, what happened is a bit vague—and not a little, a lot. To this day, nobody can say for certain what happened. Hart was invited aboard the yacht, ostensibly to work on an economics speech, by a lobbyist loyal to the Democratic Party. Afterwards, Hart (played in the film by Hugh Jackman without an awful lot of the Kennedy-esque charisma that Hart radiated) went back to the nation's capitol. Reporters from the Miami Herald were tipped off that "a friend"* of the caller was having an affair with Hart (even the identity of "the tipper" and what that particular person knew when they knew it has some holes in the details) and was travelling from Miami to Washington for a tryst, and plans were made by reporters to follow the woman "who looks like a model" on the flight. There are rumors that Hart is a "womanizer" and the tip seems like a good bet, to the point where, when they lose track of her, they immediately go to Hart's D.C. townhouse, so they can stake the place out, take some pictures.

That is until Hart notices the car outside his house, and leads them unwittingly to a back-alley confrontation behind his town-house. To the reporters, they've got him dead to rights, despite not noticing that someone could—could—leave the place unnoticed from the street. Hart's attitude is that they have no right to cover it, or question him about it. These aren't things he has to answer. 

It is an attitude he will stay with throughout the three weeks it takes for him to decide to call off the campaign, and it is something that the reporters and his own campaign staff (including J.K. Simmons and Molly Ephraim) have a hard time grasping, as the attitude he adapts seems irrelevant to the crisis—it's happening and it needs to be addressed with something better than the candidate's standard "I don't have to answer that!"

Everybody knows that you love me baby

Everybody knows that you really do

Everybody knows that you've been faithful

Ah, give or take a night or two

Everybody knows you've been discreet

But there were so many people you just had to meet

Without your clothes

And everybody knows

See what I did there? I merged from fact to movie plot, without skipping a beat. That's because Reitman and his team essentially tell the story as it has been laid out in the public record, without any speculation, without any editorializing—other than to put words in people's mouths in those instances when notes weren't being taken, and in scenes—especially between movie-Hart and wife Lee (played superbly by Vera Farmiga)—where issues brought up by audience questions can be handled by "writing to silence" (as nobody seems to want to protest the veracity). But, Hart's actions appeared to be those of a guilty man and that is what Reitman—and we—have to go by.

It is entirely plausible. Because the issue is about power and its abuse—just as it can happen in politics and in statecraft—so it happens when somebody entitled thinks they can take advantage and get away with it. The issue crosses all party-lines and is more evident now than it was "way back when" this story came out. It's a matter of class structure and the assuming of privilege "because they can." And it doesn't seem to matter how sanctimonious the perpetrators are, they see it as a right and an opportunity. Maybe even a divine right. That much can be known, because we see it every day. Even at the highest levels, there are low human beings.

Recently—too recently to have been made a part of this movie—there have been allegations that the circumstances were a "set-up" by a very prominent Republican operative with a history of such things. How much that can be believed can be argued about (and the reporters who covered the story have been extraordinarily quick to defend "their" records saying it wasn't possible because they weren't privy to it. What one cannot argue with is if it was a set-up, it was a good one, and worked very well to achieve the ends that were sought. You don't have to read too many spy-stories to know how effective honey-traps can be. But, it's just another aspect to a story about the inevitability of a weakness of character.

I found the whole thing a dissatisfying enterprise. The Front Runner provides facts, but no answers. It doesn't delve into all the facts, just the encapsulated time-line of what went down in those three weeks, regurgitating publicly available records supported by those with their own axes to grind and their own records to defend. One wonders, however, if it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Or merely what everybody knows.

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows



* The movie ends with a line that says the Hart's are still together. Well, that's nice to know. They should have included what happened to "the other woman" Donna Rice, as well. She went back to her Christian roots, where she does advocacy work...and is an ardent Trump supporter. Donna, Donna, Donna. "Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice..."