Bradley Plans to Focus on Race Relations, Continues Attacks on Gore

Democratic candidate Bill Bradley continued to attack Vice President Al Gore for campaign fund-raising controversies and also appealed to African American voters here Sunday with a promise that race relations will be a cornerstone for his presidential bid.

Bradley said he will focus on race relations in coming days, when he will visit Florida--where affirmative action is under public debate--and South Carolina, where he will denounce the Confederate flag flying over the state Capitol.

“Race is one of the fundamental elements of my campaign. . . . It is who I am, it’s what I live,” Bradley told 2,300 worshipers in Queens on Sunday at the Allen AME Church, one of the state’s largest black congregation.

Bradley was one of the few major candidates who did not take a day off after the weeks of heavy campaigning for the recent Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush had no public events scheduled Sunday.

Bush advisors met in Texas during the weekend to assess their campaign strategy in light of their lopsided loss in last week’s New Hampshire primary to Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

In one tactical adjustment, the campaign will make Bush more available to voters and less scripted in his events. Bush planners are likely to add more town hall style forums to the schedule in South Carolina, where the next crucial vote will be held Feb. 19.

McCain made two brief appearances Sunday, holding an airport rally in Phoenix and appearing on ABC-TV’s “This Week.”

On television, the senator addressed Bush’s recent charge that he has been critical of special interest campaign contributions at the same time he has courted their support.

“I welcome the support of anyone in the form of $1,000 contributions, but they know clearly well where I stand,” he said.

McCain said there was nothing hypocritical about accepting contributions from lobbyists, including some who represent clients with interests before his committee in the U.S. Senate.

During a rally at the Phoenix airport, McCain cautioned a jubilant crowd of several hundred supporters against overconfidence. Asked whether his campaign has developed “Big Mo,” or momentum, since Tuesday’s vote in New Hampshire, McCain joked: “The thing about ‘Big Mo’ is he’s been known to leave you at the most inopportune times.”

Also at the news conference, McCain labeled as “bizarre” a story published Sunday in the Arizona Republic that tried to link him to a murder investigation.

McCain was briefly interviewed by a sheriff’s deputy because the murdered man, Ronald J. Bianchi, had once spread rumors about McCain. McCain’s campaign distributed statements from four involved parties, including two county investigators, who said they believe McCain had nothing to do with Bianchi’s death.

“It’s so bizarre, it speaks for itself,” McCain said of the story.

On the Democratic side, Bradley appeared on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” Sunday and jabbed at Gore for a 1996 appearance at a fund-raiser in a Buddhist temple near Los Angeles.

The vice president has said he did not know the event was a fund-raiser, although some organizers claim that he was notified.

Bradley said the question needs more explanation.

“If he didn’t know it was a fund-raiser, he was spectacularly naive,” Bradley said at the church. “If he did know, he was wrong. . . . He has to explain more thoroughly what was happening there.”

Bradley also used the issue to warn that Gore could be a risk to the Democratic Party if the fund-raising scandals that surrounded the 1996 Democratic campaign erupt during a general election in which he is the party’s nominee.

“John McCain has already said he’s going to hit Gore like he’d beat a drum with campaign finance reform,” Bradley said. “This is the real risk in the fall. The Democratic Party is taking a risk.”

At the church, Bradley was joined by the Rev. Al Sharpton, an outspoken minister who has been criticized for being racially divisive. Sharpton noted that Bradley has made several visits to the black community in New York, but he stopped short of endorsing Bradley.

Times staff writers Eric Slater in Arizona and Ronald Brownstein in Washington and Associated Press contributed to this story.