Hart aims at Republicans

Press, 2 March 1984, Page 6

Hart aims at Republicans

NZPA-‘N.Y. Times' Chicago Senator Gary Hart, riding high after his victory in the New Hampshire primary, says that he will seek support from moderate Republicans, as well as Independents and disenchanted Democrats in his battle for the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination. Mr Hart said that he was already gathering support from Democrats who had been working for Senator Alan Cranston, who withdrew from the nomination race yesterday. Mr Hart’s political organisers in Illinois said that already they had 10 delegates in the state’s primary on March 20, most of whom had supported Mr Cranston They would continue to be listed as Mr Cranston’s delegates but they would tell voters that their support was for Mr Hart. One of the switches was a delegate who had previously

pledged to Senator John Glenn of Ohio. Mr Hart said that his New Hampshire victory, “cast this race in very stark terms between the future of the Democratic Party and its past.” “We must go beyond just the Democratic Party and

appeal to third party and independent voters,” he said. “Substantial numbers of so-called moderate Republicans are going to support this candidacy. We’ve had a clear front-runner that twothirds of the Democratic Party does not support,” he said of the former VicePresident, Walter Mondale, who finished second in New Hampshire. Mr Hart said that he would wage a national campaign with a presence in every state. However, he has not yet filed a full slate of delegates in Illinois but his aides said he would. "The New York Times” reported that Mr Mondale, had set aside his hopes of locking up the nomination in the first weeks of the primary season, and had acknowledged that his secondplace showed that the voters wanted more time to view the contenders.