"Politics today is too much about careerism, special interest, campaign contributions and access—what I need, what I want, about my rights. But the ideal I believe in is about all of us together. It is about the common good. What is best for all of us. What is best for our children and future generations. Politics is, as Plato said, "an art whose business is a concern for souls". For me, the ideal of America is about a nation of people still searching for a nobler cause, for a better destiny. We are better than who we are today. And because we know this, we are frustrated by the gap between who we are and who we should be.

America still represents a promise, a promise that democratic people can learn to live together better, that we can rise above autonomy and selfishness, that we can create a "city on a hill". I want to challenge you to join me in realizing that promise, in holding our nation and ourselves to a higher standard, to use the creativity of our heads to find new ways to realize the passion in our hearts—a passion for a just society, a passion for a great society, a passion for the ideal of the American republic."

Another of Hart's major policy speeches, this one delivered at Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia and dealing with the topic of his Oxford doctoral thesis - restoring Jefferson's forgotten "republic of duties" to our "democracy of rights."

"There is within almost every American soul a desire to make a contribution, to invest time and energy to make things better, to know the unique satisfaction of helping one's country. We call that sense idealism—the notion that the gap between what is and what ought to be can be narrowed if we will simply try.

The world does divide itself between "realists" and idealists, or perhaps it is between those who accept a kind of Darwinian determinism dictated by fate or natural selection—a Calvinistic predestinarianism between the saved and the damned—and those who believe that nothing is "written", that the human condition can be improved, that none need be left behind. Or, as Robert Kennedy said: "Some men see things as they are and ask 'Why?' I dream things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'"

The sense of idealism has roots in political theory and reality. It is the very essence of the republic. From ancient Greece and early Rome, the ideal of the republic was founded on civic virtue, the sense of citizen duty; on popular sovereignty, the notion that we are self-governing and thus determine our own destiny; on resistance to corruption, requiring the common good to prevail over special interests; and on the commonwealth itself, the proper stewardship of all those things we hold in common."

I won't try and break down his thesis.  He's written an entire book on the subject, and does a much better job of presenting it in the speech than I could summarizing.  Give it a read and see why this man must run for President.

"When I was your age, I believed in an ideal of America. And now, more than four decades later, I still do. I have only one goal in the public arena, to serve my country and perhaps also to try to inspire people like you to do so. I want you to imagine a picture of America that is above self-interest, above commercialism and materialism, and above ordinary politics. "

From anyone else's mouth this would be the clumsiest of political clichés.  But from my perspective - having now read two of his books and given careful consideration to his views on government and contemporary American politics - Hart honestly feels this way.  It is reflected in his thoughtful writings and a career of public service, of which the last 20 years has been spent in the political wilderness.  Its time to bring him back.