Bradley Gets an Assist in Attacking Gore

Democratic presidential challenger Bill Bradley jabbed at front-runner Al Gore on Friday while one of his few congressional backers, Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, made the harshest attacks yet on the vice president.

“I want to contrast [my proposals] with Al Gore,” said Bradley, speaking to 600 students and supporters at Johnston High School in this Des Moines suburb.

Bradley ticked off several issues, each time summarizing what he said were Gore’s halfhearted responses to them:

“Registration and licensing of handguns--’Too hard to do,’ [Gore] says. Universal access to affordable quality health insurance and helping middle-class Americans . . . ‘Yeah, but not now.’ Child poverty--no specific goal, no measurement against which you can be held accountable. Education--no emphasis on qualified teachers.”

Gore proposes extending health insurance to all children but says universal health care is too expensive to do all at once. He backs many gun control measures and has a long list of proposed education reforms.

At a New Hampshire news conference, Gore rejected Bradley’s attacks and renewed his challenge to Bradley that they hold biweekly debates and cancel all 30- and 60-second television and radio ads.

That challenge didn’t stop Gore from unveiling four ads in the last two days.

Two of the ads--in which Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa says Gore is the only Democratic contender who helped Iowans after floods in 1993--led to a scathing critique of Gore from Kerrey.

“I love Bill Bradley, and I’m tired of these attacks,” said Kerrey, a Democrat who ran against Clinton for president in 1992. He savaged Gore and Clinton’s “disastrous” policies that he said led to the loss of Congress to conservatives led by Republican Newt Gingrich.

“As he attacks Bill Bradley for being a quitter . . . please don’t tell me that I ought to give you a round of applause for sticking around and fighting Newt Gingrich,” he said, addressing Gore. “You brought us Newt Gingrich. That would be like asking me to thank the arsonist after he sets the house on fire because he sticks around and helps us put out the blaze.”

Kerrey also condemned Gore’s attacks on Bradley’s health care plan, saying Gore and Clinton, on the advice of political consultants, abandoned health care after Gingrich’s victory.

“I would ask the vice president . . . does the name Dick Morris mean anything to you? Because when it was your turn to try to figure out how to save your own rear end, the ends justified any means.”

Clinton and Gore relied on political consultant Morris, who advocated more centrist policies, in the 1996 election. Morris later quit after revelations about his relationship with a prostitute.

Last, in invective a Republican would relish, Kerrey blasted Gore’s record on campaign donations.

“Who was corrupted in ’95 and ’96 by the desire to raise money? . . . Inviting agents of governments into the White House for coffees and leaving the impression that national security wasn’t as important as soft-money targets?” Kerrey said.

The Clinton campaign was criticized heavily for meeting with contributors who represented foreign countries in 1995-96, but after a Justice Department investigation, no high-ranking administration official was charged with any illegality.

Kerrey is one of three senators and seven congressmen who have endorsed Bradley; Gore has racked up far more congressional endorsements. One such backer is Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who, in a new radio spot that began airing in New Hampshire on Friday, said he believes Gore would be “the health care president.”

“For years, I’ve fought for universal health care,” Kennedy says, “and I believe Al Gore has the best plan to get us there.”

Also Friday, Gore, while in Concord, N.H., announced that the Clinton administration will seek an additional $15.9 million to hire and train more nursing home inspectors.

The announcement dovetails with Gore’s persistent attacks on Bradley’s proposal to replace Medicaid. Gore contends that the quality at the nation’s 16,000 nursing homes could suffer, since Medicaid is charged largely with maintaining nursing home standards.

Bradley proposes eliminating Medicaid and replacing it with vouchers so families could purchase health insurance.

Bradley also released a TV ad in New Hampshire on Friday, reiterating that he wanted to publicly finance elections, regulate handguns, decrease child poverty and “move our collective humanity a few feet forward.”

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Times staff writer Edwin Chen in New Hampshire contributed to this story.