Former senator and two-time presidential candidate Gary Hart issued an impassioned plea for his Democratic Party to stand up for the principles that helped spawn the New Deal and shape the Great Society in a Wednesday speech at the Stanford Bookstore.

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Alvin Chow

Former senator Gary Hart gives a talk at the bookstore.

Out to promote his latest of 17 books “The Courage of Our Convictions: A Manifesto for Democrats,” Hart told a crowd of about two dozen that the Democrats must differentiate themselves from Republicans if they hope to win elections.

“This book is trying to get my party to say something” Hart told The Daily. “I care about the Democratic Party. I’m frustrated by it but am just one voice in a wilderness.”

No longer constrained by the desire to win elected office, Hart has been vocal about the need for politically controversial aims like universal health care and free airtime for candidates.

The near 20-minute speech closely paralleled the book’s content. With his party in a position to capture the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994, Hart acknowledged that the book comes amidst a quickening “drumbeat of insistence for Democrats to say something strong and definitive.

“There are an awful lot of people under the age of 20, 30 and even 40 who have not really ever heard a definitive statement of Democrats’ core beliefs,” he said, jingling his rental car keys while pacing in front of the podium. “My basic political theory is that the swing voters of the country will not listen to any of our policies until they know who we are and why we are different.”

Hart reminisced on the heyday of liberalism, from 1932 to 1968. He commended Franklin D. Roosevelt for constructing a social safety net, Harry Truman for reaching out to allies with the Marshall Plan, John Kennedy for inspiring a generation of public servants and Lyndon B. Johnson for leading the nation toward civil rights.

He criticized Bill Clinton and his political consultants for a strategy of triangulation, which he said won centrists but compromised liberal convictions.

“I think Bill Clinton missed a great opportunity in the 90s to come up with a post-Soviet, post-Cold War strategy for America,” he said.

Hart said he hoped the Democrats could agree on a common set of principles as the presidential primaries approach in 2008.

“You can disagree with the policies, but you ought to agree on the philosophy,” he said.

The Coloradan told the crowd that he warned many times of a coming terrorist attack against the United States before Sept. 11. He said that Secretary of State and former University provost Condoleezza Rice was an adviser to his 1984 campaign for the Democratic nomination when she was a Ph.D. student at the University of Denver. Citing his long acquaintance with Rice, he said he warned her of impending danger on Sept. 6 — five days before the attack — but she did nothing.

The senator alleged that the Republican Party is trying to elect secretaries of state in state governments nationwide to help tilt elections in the G.O.P.’s favor. In most states, that post administers elections.

“This is a political operation that is out to take control around the country,” he said.

Hart saw his hopes for election to the presidency sink after he dared reporters to follow him around, becoming the center of a scandal in 1987 when pictures were run of a much younger model sitting on his lap aboard the boat “Monkey Business.”

Hart was visiting the University as part of a National Academy of Sciences task force on science and security. He had appeared on CNN’s Paula Zahn to discuss the possibility of an American war against Iran just before his book signing, and criticized the network for spending 10 minutes discussing the circumstances of a reported suicide attempt by football star Terrell Owens and only four minutes talking about the possibility of military action against Iran.