Bradley Intensifies Attacks on Gore as N.H. Primary Looms

Sharpening his attack against “old politics,” Democratic presidential contender Bill Bradley on Friday accused front-runner Al Gore of employing tactics so negative that they have eroded the faith and participation of Americans in politics.

Bradley’s frontal assault, which for the first time tied his signature plea for campaign finance reform with the hard-hitting campaign waged by Gore, came as the vice president eased his criticism of the former New Jersey senator and sought to close his New Hampshire campaign on a positive note.

“When you have negative campaigning, when you have someone misleading the voters, when you have someone not telling you the truth as a voter--either about his own positions or those of his opponent, people turn off . . . so fewer people participate,” Bradley said at the day’s first stop, a town-hall style meeting at a seniors’ center in Lebanon, N.H.

The shrinking voter pool, he said, boosts the influence of money and special interests who then “dominate the legislative process,” Bradley asserted. “As they dominate the legislative process to get their things, there is less done for people where they live their lives.”

Later, at a Democratic Party dinner here, Bradley directly assailed the Clinton administration over the controversial financing of its reelection effort four years ago.

“I believe we have to face up to the fund-raising scandals of 1996,” he said. “They were disgraceful for Republicans and Democrats, but they were most embarrassing for Democrats because we are the party of the little guy,” he said. “We are the reform party. . . . If we don’t clean our house, the Republicans will clean it for us in the fall and that would be a terrible direction for this country.”

Gore, much as he did in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, shifted out of his Bradley-bashing mode Friday and sought to portray himself as opting for a higher plane.

“I’m going to continue debating the substance of the issues and emphasize the positives we’ve seen,” Gore told reporters.

Gore and Bradley shadowed each other at the Democratic dinner in this city near the Massachusetts border. The two did not encounter each other in the ballroom of a Nashua hotel where Gore supporters appeared to outnumber Bradley backers by a margin of three or four to one. But Gore, gingerly, and Bradley, less so, continued their sniping.

Gore Focuses on Attacking Republicans

Gore reserved his most direct attacks for the Republicans. He described their economic prescriptions as “snake oil”--the sort that brought about the recession of the early 1990s.

“We will not let the Republicans forget the contrast between the results under their policies and results under Democratic policies” that prevailed during the economic growth of the past seven years, the vice president said.

“You would think they would show some hesitation, if not humility, before they came before the American people and brazenly recommended that we abandon policies that worked, and go back to policies that don’t work,” he said. “The Republicans just don’t get it,” Gore added.

With only four days to go before the primary--and Gore holding a sizable lead in pre-primary polling--it was predictable that Bradley would stay on the offensive. He was due to continue that thrust today by airing a new television commercial that--without naming the vice president--struck at Gore’s record of voting against federal funding for abortions when he was serving in Congress.

“This is the kind of issue you can’t straddle,” Bradley says in the ad. “You can’t be on both sides. You have to decide which side you are on. . . . And I decided a long time ago that I’m pro-choice.”

Gore has acknowledged that he voted against some abortion legislation during his time in Congress in the 1980s, but has said that his position evolved since then to support for federal abortion funding for poor women.

Mixed Response to Bradley’s Aggression

For Bradley, aggression may be the only path to victory, but it is a rocky one. The difficulty in trying to sully Gore without dirtying himself in the process was evident by the response he received from his audience of roughly 200 people in Lebanon, a small mountain hamlet.

He drew his most sustained applause when he stated that, “this campaign is based on the radical premise that you can tell people what you believe and you can win.”

In contrast, the audience sat silent--with just a single pair of hands clapping--when he offered a litany of attacks on the vice president, accusing him of timidity in his gun control and health care proposals, and equivocation in supporting abortion rights.

Later, at another campaign stop in Newport, N.H., Bradley defended engaging in the same sniping for which he had condemned Gore.

“I think I said all along that I was going to run a positive campaign,” he told reporters. “I have done so for 14 months. And I also said all along you can only take elbows so long and then you have to return them.

“And I’ve got [Dave] DeBusschere here to confirm that as a basic point of view,” Bradley added, referring to his old New York Knicks teammate, who joined the candidate’s travels through the snowy woods of western New Hampshire.

Also on hand was ex-Connecticut governor and U.S. Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., a former Republican-turned-independent who sought to boost Bradley with New Hampshire’s critical unaffiliated voters by pleading with them not to “waste” a vote on Republican John McCain, who is competing with Bradley for the same maverick support.

“Please . . . do not confuse independence with the Republican Party,” said Weicker, who left the GOP on less-than hospitable terms.

Almost in passing, Bradley on Friday acknowledged suffering another bout of heart palpitations, the latest occurring about three or four days ago and lasting about two hours. Bradley revealed the episode when asked about them at a news conference. His recent admission of four other bouts in the previous month dominated news coverage in the critical days leading up to the Iowa caucuses.

Gore’s campaign day was split between old-fashioned politicking and policy. He stopped in the Big Bean cafe in New Market--and, when a teenage girl asked what music he liked, Gore sang softly the start of the Stevie Wonder song “I Just Called To Say I Love You.”

He also tried to build a case for his campaign by emphasizing the economic progress achieved during the last seven years of the Clinton administration.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writer Janet Wilson and Times political writers Ronald Brownstein and Cathleen Decker.