I had not heard that he was a dem! Amazing! I did hear that he was discovered by the Nixon administration to counter Kerry and that he met with Nixon. He later dropped everything because he got disguted with politics and refused to be drawn back into public debate. Until now. I can't verify this, though. I think I read it somewhere on FR.
Yes, I heard it maybe on cspan, during the running of that old debate, or else it was somewhere here on FR.
It really stuck in my mind though!