Bradley Stumps for Education, Health Care

Bill Bradley’s presidential campaign, in the midst of a grueling bicoastal schedule, landed Wednesday in snowy upstate New York, where he drove home his agenda of education and health care and promised to be better for the depressed economy in this area than the current administration.

At Erie Community College, several hundred students and local residents turned out to hear him speak, giving him several standing ovations.

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) was on hand to introduce the former senator from New Jersey, calling him a leader with “creative courage to fix problems others chose to ignore.”

But Bradley, who has kept up a hectic pace in the last week, seemed tired. Across the courtyard, the buzz of dozens of students chatting and laughing competed with his speech.

Later, at a news conference, Bradley acknowledged he has to win several key states during the primaries held from March 7 to 14. Currently, he is running behind Vice President Al Gore in the Democratic primaries in many states, including New York and California.

“I think we’re behind now in most places, but we are, I think, moving,” Bradley said. “I think that the public is not really focused on this.

“The public doesn’t really focus on this until the last two weeks of a campaign. . . . So I think we have plenty of time,” he said. “Three weeks is an eternity in politics. Our sense is that at this time next week, we’ll be in a different kind of race.”

At the same time, Gore diverted from what had been planned as a lengthy campaign stop in Macon, Ga., on Wednesday for an aerial and on-the-scene tour of the devastation wreaked on Camilla, Ga. when tornadoes struck on Monday night, leaving 18 people dead.

Because the tour was considered official business, the costs were being charged to the federal government, rather than to his campaign.

Gore also spoke by telephone with members of the Empire State Pride Agenda, a gay and lesbian group in New York that endorsed his campaign against Bradley. He allowed no television cameras, local or national, to record the conversation.

Gore turned the conversation into yet another attack on Bradley’s health care proposals, which the vice president says would rely too heavily on eliminating Medicaid and sending its recipients to private insurers.

“It is undeniably true that people with HIV-AIDS have not been able to find the kind of warm welcome in the private health insurance market that meets their needs,” he said.

Gold reported from New York and Gerstenzang from Georgia.