The Front Runner (All the Truth Is Out Movie Tie-In)

The Week Politics Went Tabloid

By: Matt Bai

Narrated by: Rob Shapiro

Now a major motion picture: The Front Runner, starring Hugh Jackman.

An NPR Best Book of the Year.

In May 1987, Colorado Senator Gary Hart - a dashing, reform-minded Democrat - seemed a lock for the party’s presidential nomination and led George H. W. Bush by double digits in the polls. Then, in one tumultuous week, rumors of marital infidelity and a newspaper’s stakeout of Hart’s home resulted in a media frenzy the likes of which had never been seen before.

Through the spellbindingly reported story of the senator’s fall from grace, Matt Bai, Yahoo News columnist and former chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, reveals the Hart affair to be far more than one man’s tragedy: Rather, it marked a crucial turning point in the ethos of political media and the new norms of life in the public eye. All the Truth Is Out is a tour de force portrait of the American way of politics at the highest level, one that changes our understanding of how we elect our presidents and how the bedrock of American values has shifted under our feet.

©2014 Matt Bai (P)2014 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"A masterfully written account...this first-rate work of political journalism will fan embers long thought to have gone out." (Publishers Weekly starred review)

"A new look at a scandal that changed American politics...[a] probing narrative." (Kirkus)

"Digging deep into a long-ago, mis-remembered scandal, Matt Bai has written an acutely intelligent and surprisingly moving page-turner about Gary Hart, journalistic blindness, and the trivialization of American politics." (George Packer, author of The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America)

Literally a “page turner”

I suspect All The Truth Is Out is required reading for a journalism major. Matt Bai is a thoughtful and introspective writer. This is an intense and intimate circumspect examination of the political landscape unfolding around the Gary Hart scandal. It is told with historic perspective as well. What adds to the sense of intensity is the first person aspects. I highly recommend!

I was blown away by this book!

Where does All the Truth Is Out rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top 20%--it was well-written, interesting, informative, and gave me a back story that helped me rethink my view of politics and politicians.

What other book might you compare All the Truth Is Out to and why?

While listening to this book I was reminded of "This Town" by Mark Leibovitch, who wrote about the absurd antics of politicians and those who make their money from politics. Bai's book seems to segue into the outcomes of what Leibovitch describes in his book.

What aspect of Rob Shapiro’s performance would you have changed?

He was OK but not a standout performer. He seemed a bit flat.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The entire discussion of Gary Hart's fall from grace for what now seems to be a minor "infraction". I had not previously known what a respected politician he had been, or how he could have been a great president. You really feel for how the lives of he and his wife were ruined by what happened (and I am someone who gets really tired of politicians preaching "values" to us and then not honoring those values).
Bali really helped me understand what has happened in our "gotcha" society and made me think about how I understand and evaluate people who are in public life.

Any additional comments?

This was a thought-provoking book that is well-written and enjoyable.

Surprise: This is a page turner.

Quite a tale. So well told. Excellent narrator. I learned a lot about politics. Gave me so much to think about. I zipped through. Read this book. Highly recommend.

Gary Hart/Donna Rice Revisited

This one was about the Hart-Rice incident in 1987 that resulted in Gary Hart going from being the presumed Democratic nominee for President to out of the race in a matter of days. The book does retrace those events and ironically if you lived through that period most of what you remember is actually wrong. The picture of Hart and Rice on The Monkey Business was the final nail in his coffin? Nope. That picture came out after he was already out of the race. Hart challenged reporters to follow him around, they accepted the challenge and caught him? Wrong. That quote was from an interview that didn’t come out until AFTER there was a stakeout that caught him with Rice.

The book doesn’t just examine that incident, however. It asks two questions. Why after looking the other way with the affairs of JFK, Ike and FDR among others, did Hart’s sex life become fair game for political reporters? Has the transition to the press covering politicians more like celebrities resulted in a worse crop of leaders? I think the author does an excellent job handling the first question, but only a fair job of handling the second.

It was an interesting book with some novel political analysis. The narrator was a good one for the topic. I got the book because it was on sale and I had really enjoyed Richard Ben Cramer’s epic What It Takes about the same election. Ironically, this book starts with the author visiting Cramer to discuss his book and the 1988 campaign. It is obvious from doing both books so close in time that both authors felt that the Rice incident deprived the country of a man who would have been a great president. I think that’s a little speculative, but both of those guys have been around a lot of leaders and talked with Hart extensively so I do give some weight to their opinions.

Excellent writing and performance

I love this author, and think this is a very important historical topic with current application. Well worth the time. I will definitely look for this performer - excellent job.

Brilliant Analysis-Thought-Provoking and Important

Election of a reality show star as president is not even mentioned in this brilliant analysis of how journalism and politics have focused on the trivial at the expense of policy. The author convincingly makes the case that both journalists and politicians are doing a disservice to the country with a false emphasis on “character“ which, in reality, is simply an attempt to prove that every one in politics is a hypocrite. There is neither a liberal nor conservative agenda to the reporting or analysis. This is what used to be called a “pink piece.” It certainly made me think about what standards we should establish for both politicians and reporters.

Fascinating and worth listening to

Great book that provides fascinating insight into the way the discourse over our public affairs has utterly deteriorated into tabloid gotcha garbage nonsense.

It’s a little bit of a slow starter but stick with it, it’s well worth getting all the way to the end.

Rob Shapiro is outstanding as usual.