To the South, Bradley Is Still an ‘Elitist, Old-Time Liberal’

Bill Bradley may be a serious presidential contender in places like New York and New Hampshire. But not here in the South. Not yet, anyway.

Less than four months before the big round of Southern primaries, Bradley is light-years behind Al Gore in everything from fund-raising to endorsements. While Gore’s edge may not be surprising, given his Tennessee roots, that advantage could prove crippling for Bradley if early contests fail to settle their fight for the Democratic nomination.

Bradley’s storied basketball history may appeal to the Ivy League crowd. But Donna Brazile, Gore’s campaign manager, says, “Al Gore enjoys home court advantage in the South.”

For their part, the Bradley camp suggests the qualities that make the candidate appealing up north will also resonate below the snow belt.

But for now, to most Southern voters, Bradley remains a mystery. Worse, many Southern governors, big-city mayors and other key operatives figure they know the former New Jersey senator all too well. “A Northeastern, elitist, old-time liberal,” snorted Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, a Gore ally.

In fact, while Bradley’s campaign prospers within the confines of the Northeast, to seriously compete against Vice President Gore--and to win the White House--he must overcome an abiding Southern skepticism and a strong sense of Dixie deja vu.

“Right now, Bradley is viewed by most Democratic officeholders across the South as a replay of Michael Dukakis or Walter Mondale,” said Emory University political scientist Merle Black, naming two presidential losers. “They see Bradley as someone who can’t win.”

A look at the candidates’ fund-raising attests to their relative regional strength. A dozen Southern states accounted for roughly 30% of the $21 million Gore raised through Sept. 30, according to the nonpartisan Campaign Study Group.

Those same states accounted for just 10% of Bradley’s $17 million. His standing with voters is scarcely better. A Los Angeles Times Poll this month found Gore leading Bradley better than 2 to 1 in the South.

It is possible to win the Democratic nomination without carrying a single Southern state. (It is also theoretically possible for Democrats to win the White House with a nominee who gets clobbered across the region. But it’s not likely.)

Still, the Bradley camp rejects any notion that he is ceding the South, even as the former NBA star focuses most of his efforts on the leadoff states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

“We’re running a national campaign with a national strategy,” said political director Ed Turlington, a North Carolinian. “Our campaign is focused on getting the delegates we need to win the nomination, and we believe we’re going to get a lot of them out of Southern states.” Besides, Turlington argued, in this age of CNN and global “dot” commerce, “we’re not as regionally divided as we once were,” diminishing the advantage of Gore’s regional roots.

But Ferrel Guillory, among others, disagrees. “The center of gravity in Southern politics is still center-right,” said Guillory, head of the University of North Carolina’s Southern politics program. “And that comes much closer to the way Gore has positioned himself overall.”

The two candidates generally agree on most issues, but there are significant differences. Bradley’s health care plan is more ambitious (and more expensive). He would register handguns (Gore favors licensing handgun owners) and would permit gays to serve openly in the military. Also, Bradley opposes the 1996 welfare reform bill and favors defense cuts--stands that could prove particularly problematic in the South, where both issues speak to larger cultural values.

For now, however, support for Gore seems less a matter of issues than empathy. More than anywhere else in America, the South remains a place apart, its attitudes as distinct as its geographic borders, its bygones never really gone. Here, history runs in the veins.

Dick Harpootlian, chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, believes Gore “has a better understanding of the uniqueness of Southern culture, the Southern mind” than Bradley, who grew up outside St. Louis before making a career of sports and politics in the Northeast.

He cites the controversy over the Confederate flag, which flies over the state capitol in Columbia. While Bradley may approach the matter as an abstract notion, for Gore it is a “gut issue,” Harpootlian suggested, “something you need to deal with as seriously as you deal with the economy or military problems.” (For the record, both Gore and Bradley support efforts to remove the flag.)

Of course, some snicker at Gore’s squishy Southern pedigree, which he’s increasingly emphasized as part of his campaign make-over.

True, Gore grew up mostly in a fancy Washington hotel, the son of a U.S. senator. But it’s also true the Gores, father and son, represented Tennessee a combined 54 years in Congress. That lineage counts a lot among Democratic activists, especially those who recall the senior Gore’s politically risky support for the civil rights movement.

“Bill Bradley shows an understanding, a very real understanding,” of civil rights issues, which he’s highlighted in his campaign, said Harpootlian, who is officially neutral in the primary contest. But “the Gore family bears the scars, I can tell you, the emotional and political scars of having fought that fight and paid for it.”

African Americans represent the bulwark of Gore’s Southern support, which is not surprising: Blacks have been the most faithful backers of President Clinton.

From defending affirmative action to lifting the wages of black Americans, “the Clinton administration has walked the walk,” said David Bositis, a Washington analyst who tracks black voters’ behavior. “And Gore has been a part of that administration. That’s a big advantage among African Americans.”

And that support, in turn, could be a big advantage for Gore in the South. Blacks often cast a majority of the Democratic votes in Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina; as much as 40% of the votes in Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia; and roughly 20% of the Democratic votes in Florida and Texas, according to Bositis. One activist key to boosting the black vote in 1998 was Brazile, now manager of Gore’s campaign, who headed turnout efforts for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

For Bradley, the best scenario would be a series of early victories that could force the vice president from the race or, at the least, make Bradley appear unstoppable by the time the race heads South in mid-March. “Winning is the best way to counter” doubts about Bradley’s electability, said strategist Anita Dunn.

In the meantime, the Bradley campaign is studying ways to cherry-pick the South, competing in Texas, Florida and selected pockets that offer the best prospects for a candidate with Bradley’s low-key, cerebral appeal. There are plenty of Democrats, here as elsewhere, tired of the Clinton administration and all its scandals. “Bradley’s a breath of fresh air,” said Albert Meir, a Raleigh, N.C., developer, who recently heard Bradley speak before a Jewish group in Atlanta. “I think people are looking for something new and different.”

At the same time, the campaign is banking on Bradley’s jock appeal to attract sports-crazy Southerners in a way candidates like Mondale and Dukakis never could.

But Bositis, for one, is skeptical. “The sport in the South that borders on being a religion is football,” he said. “If you talk basketball in the South it’s Kentucky. Not some place like New York or New Jersey.”