Beach-Goers Tell Bill Bradley to Go for It

Like a message in a bottle, the words floated in from the ocean: “Bring some respectability to that office, OK? Give it a shot.”

The messenger, clad in swim trunks, turned back to the sea. The recipient of his message, former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), smiled and kept walking.

Bradley portrayed his recent full-day visit to the shore as nothing more than a chance to chat with people, a continuation of weekend beach walks he took as a senator.

But some people had other ideas, and they encouraged him to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000.

Bradley told them he is thinking about it and will decide by year’s end.

In an interview, he said he still is grappling with two questions: Can he “add appreciably to the public welfare at this time,” and “Do I and my family want to jump off a 50-story building with no idea if there’s a net at the bottom.”

As Bradley decides whether to leap, his name already is circulated as a possible alternative to Vice President Al Gore, the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

“He passes the first test of a presidential candidate: He would be taken seriously from day one,” said Democratic strategist James Carville, an advisor to President Clinton.

A July poll by WMUR-TV in New Hampshire gave Gore a strong lead among Democrats in that important primary state, with 45%. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts followed with 15%, and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri got 13%. Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone rounded out the Democratic hopefuls with 6% and 1%, respectively.

Bradley said he would run only as a Democrat, not as a third-party outsider, a role with which he flirted in 1996. He said the legal problems of Clinton and Gore--whose White House hopes have been clouded by accusations of fund-raising improprieties--will have “zero” effect on his decision.

“You don’t make a decision like this for tactical reasons,” he said.

Bradley lamented Clinton’s admitted affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky as “a sad moment in this country.” But when Jim Guy of Haddonfield, biking in Ocean City with his young daughter, urged Bradley to call for Clinton’s resignation, Bradley just nodded and said nothing.

Wearing green athletic shorts, a turquoise shirt, sneakers and a pair of blue and orange-striped New York Knicks socks, Bradley made stops at seven popular beaches from Ocean City north to Belmar.

He ate watermelon in Atlantic City with swimmers who had completed a one-mile ocean swim. He bought corn at a produce market on Long Beach Island. He posed for pictures, signed autographs and talked basketball with fans who remembered his years with the Knicks.

Since leaving the Senate at the start of 1997 after 18 years, Bradley has taught, lectured, worked with civic organizations and corporate boards and done a stint as a “CBS Evening News” essayist. His new book, on values important in sports, is due out in October.

Seeing him back at the oceanfront, many people encouraged Bradley to test the political waters again.

“We need someone with good moral character,” Brad Henson, a municipal prosecutor and a Republican, told Bradley in Surf City. “Go for it.”

“We need you, big guy,” said Mark Rowan as he walked up to shake Bradley’s hand. But Rowan, a real estate developer, told reporters that he thinks Bradley should wait until 2004.

“If you were a Democrat, would you drop in the middle of what’s going on now?” he asked.

Linda Blakaitis of Freehold told Bradley, “I loved you when you were a basketball player, I loved you when you were a senator, and I’ll love you when you’re president.”

“He gets down to the level of the people. He understands regular people,” Blakaitis said. “These beach walks--I think they’re great.”

The vast majority of conversations were light. At Island Beach State Park, Bradley met a woman with skin so bronze she looked like an advertisement for suntan lotion.

“What you need to do,” Bradley told her with a deadpan look, “is work on your tan.”