Sounds of the Righteous Brothers

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When a hot breeze of scandal blew away Gary Hart's candidacy, the other contenders felt a chill of apprehension. Would each be asked, as Hart was in his last press conference, whether he had committed adultery? Would evasion stamp a politician with Hester Prynne's scarlet letter?

Last week nobody put the brutal A question directly to any of the remaining candidates, but TV talk-show hosts and newspaper reporters came close enough by demanding to know whether the inquiry was a legitimate campaign issue. Many of the candidates danced around this hand grenade, waiting for it to become yesterday's news. "The debate," said Richard Gephardt's campaign manager William Carrick, "is going through an awkward phase, a cartoon phase." But even if the sex angle goes stale, candidates will have to spend considerable time on broader ethical issues.

Democratic Senator Joe Biden, on CNN's Larry King Live, wondered if relentless interrogation along personal lines would "make politics like a circus." Emphasized Biden, whose strong family life has been a political asset for years: "I don't have anything to worry about in the sense that there is a culpable act in my background or that I have a promiscuous life- style."

On NBC's Meet the Press, Democrats Gephardt and Jesse Jackson came down on opposite sides. Gephardt argued, "You answer the questions you are asked," & even intrusive ones. Lechery deserves discussion, he said, because "I don't think that's the way we want our leaders to act. I don't think that's a good role model for the country." Jackson insisted that Hart had been correct in ducking the adultery question. A candidate's morality, he said, should be judged by his stands on issues such as South African policy and the contras as well as bedroom behavior. Intimate inquiry is legitimate, Jackson contended, only when "some illicit relationship was having some bearing on national interest or national security."

For Jackson, a Baptist minister with strong support in black churches, the issue is particularly touchy because for years he has been the subject of unsubstantiated rumors. Some of his backers worry about his vulnerability on "character" questions. As Hart's campaign was collapsing two weeks ago, several advisers met with Jackson in Chicago. According to one of his aides, they discussed possible tactics in the event similar questions were raised about Jackson, and he was warned against any appearance of impropriety.

There was disagreement among Republicans as well. When the New York Times last week polled 14 candidates asking how "hypothetical" contenders, pure and impure, should answer the A question, responses spanned the spectrum. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole said once a politician has declared for the presidency, he sacrifices his right of privacy. Congressman Jack Kemp, who has had to deny 20-year-old rumors of sexual misconduct, rejected the Times inquiry as "beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate." Vice President George Bush warned the press against "unseemly inquiries into private behavior." Pat Robertson, the other Baptist clergyman seeking the presidency, said national candidates should be held, at the very least, to the same standards of conduct as U.S. Marine guards stationed at the Moscow embassy.