t the April FCC meeting, two proposals were made for television networks to provide free time to candidates late in the presidential campaign. Hart says he was invited to comment because of his experience in presidential races and his sense of how Americans feel about campaigns, and also because he is outspoken about his interest in campaign reform. "My goal was not to represent the Democrats. There's a process that has broken down, and it's time to put it back on track," he said.
He told Hundt that the proposals--from Fox Network's Rupert Murdoch and from Walter Cronkite and Paul Taylor, who is on leave from The Washington Post crusading for campaign reform--came at an opportune time. First, he said, the mood of the country, from all points of the compass, was of "anger and revulsion" with politics. Further, "the only anger greater than the anger the public has for politicians is the anger it has for the media," he said. Second, the country is at the threshold of a huge increase in the number of television channels, which probably will have far-reaching effects on how campaigns reach viewers in the future. He suggested that Hundt see if the effort could be billed as the Paul Taylor/Walter Cronkite proposal with Murdoch in a low-profile role. While Murdoch's plan had merit, the fact that it came from a corporation that could profit from the campaign programming makes it problematic, Hart said.
After lunch, Hart hustled across town and into the Roosevelt Room of the White House, adjacent to the Oval Office. There he sat with Tyson and two of her staff, all clustered around the end of a heavy, 20-foot table. His mission, he explained later, was to try to get President Clinton's staff to frame their message correctly--to talk about the accomplishments of the administration not with statistics and macroeconomics but in human terms. "It's about lifestyles," Hart told Tyson. "In part it's talking to people about people." The public wants to hear about how the government is going to help middle-class people make it in today's economy, he said. No matter how good the statistics are, people don't necessarily feel it in their own lives and, even if they do, they don't link that feeling back to the President, he said.
Hart also advised the Clinton staff to make sure that every possible reference to opponent Bob Dole link him with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, since Gingrich's negative ratings were already being seen by some as a liability for the Republicans. While Hart probably wasn't the only one with the idea, it was exactly one month later that Maura Liasson did a piece on National Public Radio's Morning Edition specifically about the White House's persistent use of the "Dole-Gingrich team" in its statements.
While the round of meetings in Washington illustrates how, and with whom, Hart operates, it does not represent a typical day for him. "Any regular day you might find me sitting at the table here with another analyst working through a questionnaire or an analysis," he said, pointing to a work table stacked with 11 thick, black notebooks and flanked by a Colby chair.
Hart's regular-day scenario, however, doesn't take into account the fact that he travels 100 days and runs about 100 focus groups each year. On the Tuesday after his round of meetings in Washington, Hart presented research on drugs and crime in America at the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Va., in the morning before flying to Los Angeles and Seattle that afternoon to run focus groups for corporate clients, including Time-Warner. The company was about to launch its first-ever corporate image ads using the theme "There's a little bit of Time-Warner in every one of us," a concept Hart helped develop.
Knowledge and insight are paramount in his business, but there also is the matter of tending to the business and maintaining quality that has kept Hart Research at the top of its field since its inception. With more than 40 projects running concurrently, Hart sets high standards by putting himself in his clients' shoes and reminding himself that people are paying him to get the best information. "To every one of these clients, it's the Super Bowl," he said. "You can't forget it. There's nothing routine. The challenge is to do it well."
Three days after the Time-Warner focus group Hart was on the opposite coast running similar sessions in Colby's Miller Library. He pitched in to augment Colby's senior exit-interview process by running two groups, one all men and the other all women, probing their experiences at the College. Hart claims there's an element of self-interest. "It's the only way to know firsthand what's really out there," he said of his opportunity to meet with college students. With clients like Rolling Stone and MTV, college is not an age group he can ignore.
He came away impressed. "These kids are so smart, so sensible and so generally knowledgeable, and their love of Colby and commitment to Colby is so strong," he said. "If there's a uniqueness to Colby it has to be the student-faculty relationships--that came through regardless of where the students came from or what they majored in." Among challenges, alcohol was the "hot button" issue, and students generally wanted to see the administration listen more closely and act more quickly, he said.
Hart has a wife, Florence, and two children (a daughter at Duke University, a son in high school), is on the road one of every three weekdays, plays tennis and swims before work every morning, works in his study from after dinner until midnight and still finds time to serve as a trustee at Colby. "There are a lot of people who are a lot busier than I am who fit it in and make it work," he said.
As the son of a professor, he says, he has always valued higher education and its institutions. "I was born that way and raised that way." But he feels he owes a special debt to Colby. "Colby took a chance on me," he said. "My career is due, in part, to my education at Colby. It didn't land me my first job, but it prepared me for all the jobs I've had." In addition to contributing his time (recently as an overseer, now as a trustee and for years as sponsor of frequent Colby interns at his Washington office) Hart also endowed the Hart Scholarship, which is given to a student who demonstrates commitment to public or community service.

lash back to Washington and the Freedom Forum program on drugs and crime. Hart presented research commissioned by Drug Strategies (an organization "committed to facts, quality research and analysis and spreading effective strategies") and The Police Foundation. After his presentation Hart faded into the shadows, and a panel of law enforcement officials, political consultants and a criminology professor spent more than an hour discussing the implications of the research. A television crew taping the proceedings had shut off its equipment until, suddenly, Hart joined the panel and fielded a question from U.S. News & World Report writer Ted Guest. There was a flurry of activity in the back of the room. The television reporter roused his cameraman and whispered, "Roll, roll."
Peter Hart was talking.