Sunday Morning News

Super Tuesday Could be Political Epitaph For Bill Bradley

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Vice President Al Gore also picked up the endorsement of "The New York Times" today. Gore campaigned yesterday in New York. He's scheduled to return there today after some appearances in Rhode Island. The vice president also was in Boston yesterday, where he was joined by Senators John Kerry and Ed Kennedy. Gore is so far ahead in the Democratic polls that he's dropped references in his stump speeches to his only rival for the nomination, Bill Bradley.

For Bradley, Super Tuesday could be his political epitaph. The candidate continues to sound upbeat and even has some important friends. But unless something dramatic happens on Tuesday, Bradley's quest for the nomination doesn't look good.

CNN's Bob Franken reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bill Bradley, Bill Bradley, Bill Bradley...

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Start spreadin' the news. Bill Bradley was in old New York. He's fighting to win it here, to win it anywhere, but it's looking grim, even with a little help from his friends.

ED KOCH (D), FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: You have got to go out and bring 10 others with you. Raise your right hand and say after me, I solemnly swear...

BRADLEY SUPPORTERS: I solemnly swear...

KOCH: ... that next Tuesday...

BRADLEY SUPPORTERS: ... that next Tuesday...

KOCH: ... I shall bring to the polls...

BRADLEY SUPPORTERS: ... I shall bring to the polls...

KOCH: ... 10 voters committed to Bill Bradley.

BRADLEY SUPPORTERS: ... 10 voters committed to Bill Bradley.

BILL BRADLEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You gonna do what the judge says? You gonna make 10? How about 20? How about 30? How about 40? How about 50?

FRANKEN: By the end of the rally, Bradley was up to 100. And he's going to need every one of them. Polls show that he's behind even here, where his days with the New York Knicks are still legendary. But this is a real rough game, presidential politics, and the clock is running down on Bradley.

Still, he released a toughly worded statement about a long-time associate and fund-raiser for Vice President Gore. Maria Hsia had helped arrange a 1996 visit by Gore to a Buddhist temple in California and was found guilty of charges that she illegally funneled contributions to the Democrats.

"Now," said Bradley, "is the time for Al Gore to be straight with the American people." Gore's spokesman responded that Bradley was being negative and went on to say, "Thus far in this primary season, the score is Al Gore 4 and 0, Bill Bradley, 0 and 4."

Bradley, meanwhile, continued his last-ditch quest for a campaign score in two of the Super Tuesday states, New York and Missouri.

BRADLEY: We're a little behind, but it's not over. You know, I came from Missouri. You know Harry Truman, they said he was finished in 1948, he didn't have a chance. And you know what happened there, he came from behind and won. Let's do that on Tuesday! Thank you very much, thank you.

FRANKEN (on camera): Bill Bradley's home state, Missouri, is known as the Show Me State. And he's made it clear that he's going to have to be shown the Super Tuesday results before he'll make any decision about the future of his campaign, or whether it has a future.

Bob Franken, CNN, New York.

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MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: When Bill Bradley first threw his hat in the ring, there was concern in the Gore camp the former New Jersey senator would co-opt the liberal wing of the party, in part by employing an eloquent appeal to minorities. So far that hasn't happened in any significant numbers.

For more on this and how racial issues have factored into the political debate this election season, we turn to Jack White, who writes a column for "Time" magazine called The Dividing Line.

Jack, thanks for being with us.

JACK WHITE, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: What happened to Bill Bradley? New York should have been his power base, and minorities should have been at the core of that power base. Something happened along the way, though, to allow him -- Al Gore to co-opt that from him.

WHITE: Well, I mean, Bill Bradley has tried to play politics the same way he played basketball, which was all head, no heart. He's played a thinking man's game. The black vote, in particular, is looking for more than simply well-crafted arguments about why someone should support them. They're also looking for an appeal to their hearts as well. And Bradley simply hasn't supplied that.

He doesn't have much in the way of, if you'll forgive this, natural rhythm as a politician, and unfortunately he just hasn't made the connection.

Gore, on the other hand, has been a very fired-up kind of candidate. And you're dealing with a constituency which sees itself as being under attack in the Republican -- from the Republicans in particular, and looking for somebody who impresses them as being extremely tough in fighting for their interests as well.

But Bradley...

O'BRIEN: Well, Jack, I got to say, I'm a little bit surprised. If we're having this conversation, say, a year ago, you probably could have leveled the same criticisms about the political efficacy of the candidate against Al Gore, and said Al Gore had for politics. Has he changed?

WHITE: Well, you have to remember -- you have to -- Gore has benefited from having Bradley as an opponent in these contests. His campaign style has improved a great deal. He also benefits from the fact that he inherits the mantle of Bill Clinton, the president, who is the most popular president among blacks, perhaps, in history, at least certainly going back to the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Bradley does not have anything like that kind of loyalty to draw on.

O'BRIEN: All right, listen...

WHITE: It hurts him.

O'BRIEN: ... let's turn over to the GOP side of things. It's been kind of an ugly scene there when you start talking about -- well, I guess the first racial issue which was injected into that campaign was the Confederate flag in South Carolina.

WHITE: Right.

O'BRIEN: All the candidates suddenly saying, Well, we don't want to weigh in on issues which are states' issues, which -- of course, they weigh in on all kinds of issues which have a lot to do with states.

WHITE: Oh, well, absolutely. I mean, this was clearly a lot of baloney on both of their parts and an attempt to appeal to the extremely conservative voters in South Carolina.

McCain actually bobbled it. His first statement was that he supported taking the flag down. He saw it as a symbol of bigotry. He took that back and turned it around. Gore argued that it was a -- I'm sorry, Bush argued that it was a states' rights issue.

When blacks hear that term "states' rights," they think back to the days when that was the term used to invoke their right to resist integration. And...

O'BRIEN: That's a turn-off phrase, isn't it?

WHITE: Absolutely, absolutely...

O'BRIEN: Now, this whole Bob Jones thing, other Republican candidates have spoken at Bob Jones University. You laugh, (inaudible)?

WHITE: Well, that too is very funny. I mean, I find it hilarious that Republicans are invoking the fact that Ronald Reagan, whose campaign was largely based on, or at least perceived to be based on resistance to some of the more liberal attempts to integrate America, (inaudible) more liberal racial policy. The fact that Bob -- that Ronald Reagan spoke at Bob Jones University doesn't clean it up with liberals and doesn't clean it up with blacks.

I mean, Ronald Reagan also spoke at Philadelphia, Mississippi, to kick off his campaign in 1980, and he mentioned states' rights down there. So that doesn't really clean it up for him.

O'BRIEN: All right, final note, and we don't have too much time, but I do want to ask you about this. Senator McCain has said repeatedly on his kind of open news conference on his bus, he has repeatedly referred to his captors when he was held prisoner in Hanoi in a derogatory way, which I will not repeat here. I wonder, if it had been another group, say, you know, an African descent -- descended group, what would the reaction be to that?

WHITE: Oh, I think it would have been all -- I think it would have been -- it would have been one of a great deal of condemnation of him. I think the fact that this was Vietnamese hasn't, in fact, given him a sort of a pass that he wouldn't have got if it had referred to any other group. I think he's gotten off the hook a little bit easily, as a matter of fact.

O'BRIEN: All right. Jack White writes a column called The Dividing Line for "Time" magazine. We appreciate your joining us on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

WHITE: Thank you.

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