Hart in South, Hopes to Avoid ’84 Mistakes

GRIFFIN, Ga. — Gary Hart, making his first major swing through the South since becoming an official candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, appears determined to show he will not succumb to the mistakes he made in 1984.

Hart said in an interview Sunday that the five-day trip, which concludes today in Mississippi, was meant to prove that “if I had a chance to reach out to people on a one-to-one basis, I could do as well here as I have in other parts of the country. . . . I want to demonstrate that I can win Southern votes.”

It was in this region where his 1984 campaign sputtered after Hart’s dramatic victory in the New Hampshire primary. In the so-called “Super Tuesday” of Southern primaries, he won the popular vote in only one state: Florida.

Stakes Will Be Higher

What Hart could not do in 1984 was get beyond the Tarmacs and television studios of the South’s big cities, he said. In 1988, the stakes will be even higher as a dozen or more Southern states cast their primary ballots on that one day.

In the longer run, the region’s political significance may be even greater. Without the South, whose white voters have strayed from the Democratic Party in recent presidential elections, Democrats will not recapture the White House, Hart said.

For Hart, the big difference between this campaign and his last one is his status as front-runner. That, he said, gives him more of an opportunity to establish an early political beachhead in the rural South while his lesser-known opponents are working to make their names familiar in Iowa and New Hampshire, the crucial early tests of political strength.

On this trip, his van caravan moved between places like Eclectic, Ala., and Wilson, N.C. And with voters such as Horace Sandlin, who runs the Hongry Horses Restaurant in Slapout, Ala., the effort clearly made a difference.

‘Says What I Want to Hear’

“He says what I want to hear and he came down here to say it,” said Sandlin, who added that he plans to vote for the former senator from Colorado.

Many of Hart’s stops were in economically depressed agricultural areas, such as Linwood Hook’s tobacco farm near Greenville, N.C. There Hart drew cheers for promising to keep productive land in the hands of family farmers.

“He’s too calm and austere on TV. He’s much, much warmer in person,” said Frank Kirkland, a retired government worker who attended the gathering at Hook’s farm.

Those who had observed Hart in his first campaign say this year’s candidate is much looser and more at ease. They say his theme of national unity has an added personal dimension, particularly at smaller gatherings.

Hasn’t Lost Reserve

Still, Hart has not lost the reserve that gave him an image as cool and aloof in 1984.

For instance, in an appearance at the opening of a revival at all-black Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta, one of his few big-city stops, Hart sat stiffly through an emotional sermon that had the congregation swaying, clapping and chanting.

“I’m 50 years old. You can’t change your style,” he said later. “You can’t calculate those things. If you do, everybody’s going to know it’s phony.”