Gore, Bradley Trade Bitter Barbs in California

The two rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination presented competing visions for the nation and their party Saturday and accused each other of running divisive campaigns that will risk defeat for Democrats in November.

Al Gore, taking the lectern at the California Democratic convention, said Bradley unwisely attacks his own party and suffers “from a kind of Demo-pessimism.” Bradley, speaking barely an hour earlier, suggested Gore is “in bed with the special interests.”

The dueling visits set the stage for the final weeks of intense and already bitter campaigning between Gore and Bradley before the critical primary elections on March 7, which include California.

Vice President Gore, with a more polished organization behind him, was greeted by a sea of blue and white signs far more numerous than those awaiting Bradley, the former senator from New Jersey. But each candidate won waves of applause from the more than 2,000 party activists at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

California has become a focal point of the primary race; Democrats will choose 367 delegates to the party’s national convention in August in Los Angeles. That is roughly one-sixth of the number needed to secure the nomination. With the other primaries, including in New York and Ohio, and party caucuses on March 7, nearly one-third of the delegates will be selected that day, most likely wrapping up the fight for the nomination.

Their appearances Saturday gave each candidate a chance to woo some of the party’s most faithful members, to set Democrats apart from Republicans and--perhaps most difficult of all--to undercut each other while outlining essentially similar goals.

So, on a February day chilly and damp, the party slipped into a pit of acrimony despite brief homilies on the higher calling of leadership and politics. Reaction was mixed.

“Outstanding!” said an energized F. Smith Small, a 57-year-old Sacramento school principal, after Gore spoke. “Initially, I was torn between the two of them. But he’s right. [President] Clinton has been good for us. People are working since we’ve had the Democratic Party in charge. [Bradley] needs to stop tearing us down and get on board.”

But with the vice president holding a lead that at least one poll puts at 4 to 1 in California, his tone angered Bradley supporters.

“It made him look unpresidential, being so far ahead and still picking fights,” said Lianne Yu, 29, a graduate student from San Francisco. “Bradley was much more positive and visionary.”

Bradley, a rare forceful tenor taking over much of his delivery, offered an optimistic vision of the nation’s future and called for courage and leadership in the party. But then he warned that Democrats faced “a special vulnerability” on the issue of campaign finance reform if Gore is nominated.

“The only way the Democratic Party could fail to win in the year 2000 is if we did not take the reform mantle and we failed to be bold enough in these times of enormous change,” Bradley said. “If we don’t stand up for reform, we have a special vulnerability. Republicans are expected to be in the pockets of special interests. But Democrats are not. We’re supposed to be the party of reform, the party that helps the little guy.

“So when people get in bed with the special interests, we have a crisis of identity.”

Gore, driving home his message in English mixed with several sentences of Spanish, demonstrated himself to be a bilingual growler, shifting into a guttural voice to stir up his crowd as he attacked Bradley with renewed fervor for bailing out of the Senate two years after the Republican congressional triumphs in the 1994 elections. “Sen. Bradley gave up too soon,” Gore said.

“Nobody should run for the Democratic nomination by running down the Democratic achievements of the past seven years,” Gore said after Bradley had, in his speech, held out the goals of ending child poverty and gaining universal health care that have eluded the Clinton administration.

“I guess with 20 million new jobs, 2 million new jobs here in California--that’s pretty good job placement,” Gore said to cheers from the convention floor. Supporters waved their signs proclaiming on one side “Gore 2000” and on the other “Viva Gore.”

“The real Democrat,” Gore said, “is not the one who seems to be taking his talking points from the Republican National Committee. Real Democrats don’t aid and abet the Republicans. Standing together, we stay and fight against the Republicans who are the party of retreat, reaction and recrimination.”

In his 40-minute speech, Bradley urged the delegates to chose to be part of “the party of the future,” saying the Democrats should embrace the challenges of health care, education, gun control and campaign finance reform. Gore shares similar goals but in many cases argues there is insufficient political and financial resources to achieve them all in a giant step.

“We have in our best moments always been the party of big ideas and big ideals,” Bradley said. “I believe to the bottom core of my being that the Democratic Party can be the agent for that kind of dream, for that kind of accomplishment, as long as we do one thing: We must not settle. Democrats don’t settle.”

Earlier, at a nearby rally, the former professional basketball player said that “we still have the fourth quarter to go. We’ve got plenty of time here in California.”

Nevertheless, after hearing the speech, Thomas Selden, 56, a retired naval officer from Antioch, said he thought Bradley sounded like he was conceding defeat.

“Gore showed he was really a fighter,” he said. “He tried to reach out to Bradley supporters and unite the party. If Bradley can’t take it now, there’s no way he could take it in November.”

But first-time convention-goer Jessica Cisler, 30, an attorney from Mountain View, said she was upset with the tone Gore took.

“I was shocked,” she said. “Bradley went out of his way not to be divisive, to call on us to be better people. I think [Gore’s speech] was really low and unnecessary. His whole tactic he’s taken in his campaign is to slam Bradley.”