TL;DR: There's little evidence that Hart was actually involved with Donna Rice, whose very public photograph with the candidate ended his presidential campaign. Now it appears that GOP tactician Lee Atwater staged the whole thing.
If history had gone in a different direction in 1987, and Hart had become the 41st president rather than Bush, then Bill Clinton would not have had his chance in 1992, or perhaps ever. George W. Bush, who found his footing with a place on his father’s winning campaign, would probably never have emerged as a contender. When and whether Barack Obama and Donald Trump might ever have come onto the stage no one can say. “No first Bush if things had turned out differently,” Gary Hart told me. “Which means no second Bush—at least not when he arrived. Then no Iraq War. No Cheney. Who knows what else?”
Oh, those quaint old days where having the merest hint of a mistress was death to a candidacy. Now hush money litigation by a thrice divorced sexual predator against his porn star mistress doesn't matter anymore.
Not just hush money, but public disclosure of the whole affair -- and others. And transparent collusion with Russia and Saudi.
It is very hard to teach children to behave like civilized human beings when we have a Jackass-in-Chief.
"You can get away with anything as long as you win" is a terrible moral standard.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein "I don't stand by anything." - Trump “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 “It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow