Former Senator Gary Hart’s Predictions for the Iowa Caucuses

AMANPOUR:

I guess I want to ask you in terms of my Bloomberg, I mean somebody like him, yes, a late entrant into the race is not competing either in Iowa or New Hampshire and he’s going to wait until super Tuesday. How do you just talk to that issue? Like he’s a very important candidate in terms of money issues and all the rest of it, but he’s just going to avoid them.

GARY HART:
Well, there have been dramatic changes in American politics. As you well know in recent decades, the introduction of social media, of um, small dollar contributions, Barack Obama pioneered in getting financing through small dollars, uh, through the internet. That’s another revolution. But, but sooner or later candidates have to submit themselves to the voters, either in caucuses or in primaries. And I don’t, there was one factor that I feel very strongly about given my experience. And that is the first in the nation States should be small. If you started the contest with 14 super Tuesday States or California or New York, it just means that dark horse candidates like myself with very little financing have very little chance. So I would just advocate if it’s not Iowa and New Hampshire, that it be another small state. And once again, I submit them. Colorado is a possible,

AMANPOUR:
I know you’re not an interested party at all in that. Um, let me ask you just to say it. Why not? Um, who do you think is going to win the Iowa caucus for the Democrats?

GARY HART:
Oh, I’m, I’m terrible at predicting if I don’t believe the polls. I think they give you a rough estimate. But I know Iowa and New Hampshire well enough to know that days before the caucus are the primary people still haven’t made up their mind. And that’s particularly true when you start with a field of 14 or 16 and it gradually narrows down to seven or eight. That’s still a lot of candidates in my year. I think there were four or five of us, maybe six and that that narrowed down to two or three very, very quickly after New Hampshire. So you’ve got a big field, you’ve got changing ways of campaigning from those days, which weren’t too long ago. So, uh, all you, all you have to go on are the polls and they’re not terribly reliable. Clearly, vice-president Mon vice president Biden is in, in near the top, if not at the top, but things are going to change dramatically.