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But after Bradley announced his ambitious health-care proposal at the end of September, Gore was like a puppy with a new chew toy. He spat on in, he tossed it around, he hid it under the sofa. He made assumptions, he cast aspersions, he dragged it in stink and hung it around Bradley's neck.

"Sen. Bradley's plan ... imperils Medicare, wipes out Medicaid, spends billions on those who already have health insurance, only covers 1 percent more than my plan -- far from his stated goal of 95 percent -- and does so while using up our entire surplus," Gore charged. "In short, he offers a flawed trillion-dollar plan that will cost the American people even more in the long run."

The Bradley campaign, bearing in mind the old axiom about never wrestling with a pig -- you just get dirty and the pig loves it -- tried to remain above the fray. During the Oct. 28 debate at Dartmouth College, when Gore cited an "expert's" claim that the Bradley health-care plan would cost much more than the $650 billion Bradley had assigned, Bradley politely said, "We each have our own experts. I dispute the cost figure that Al has used."

When the criticism seemed to be gaining traction, however, the Bradley people sent out a press release noting that "Gore is attacking Bradley's plan simply because it is comprehensive and bold." Further, the Bradley press release stated, Gore is able to attack Bradley's plan without fear of retaliation precisely because "Gore has made promises about his plans for America ... [without telling] the American people what these promises will cost."

In mid-November, Gore began accusing the Bradley health-care plan of potentially robbing funding for Medicaid, thus disproportionately hurting African-Americans, AIDS patients and the disabled.

Bradley finally entered the fight, responding that Gore was using "scare tactics and divisiveness."

"This inaccurate attack is precisely the kind of thing that makes it impossible to get anything done in Washington," Bradley said in Los Angeles on Nov. 13. "Scare tactics and divisiveness poison the atmosphere, alienate the public and create the kind of political paralysis that has left 44 million Americans without health insurance and millions more struggling to pay for it." Bradley also sent an e-mail to people on his list criticizing the vice president.

Previously unwilling to play at the vice president's level, Bradley soon began going on the offensive, attacking the veep for being part of a "tacit, secret handshake signal(ing) an agreement among politicians not to upset a [campaign-finance] system that they use to their advantage."

Reminding voters of the Clinton-Gore campaign's 1996 fund-raising shenanigans -- a subject he refused to touch at Dartmouth, when he said he wasn't "going to get into the details" of the scandal -- Bradley said that "there are reports that Clinton administration cabinet officers are being asked to arrange their travel schedules and public announcements so the vice president can finance his political campaign with taxpayer dollars when his funds run out."

But Gore got Bradley back on the ropes after Bradley refused to rule out a tax increase in an interview with the editorial board of the Washington Post.

"Yesterday, the vice president said I was talking about tax increases," Bradley responded on Monday. "Let me be quite clear. I am not proposing a tax increase. I specifically said I was not proposing a tax increase and the vice president knows it. Nobody can predict the future of a trillion-dollar economy. That's why the vice president also has not ruled out the possible need for a tax increase. He and I have the same position on future taxes.

"In falsely asserting I want to raise taxes, Al Gore is once again turning an honest discussion about a future no one can predict into a proposal I've never made," Bradley said. "Al Gore needs to respect voters enough to be honest not just about his plans, but mine. Honesty and trust is what they would like to have in a candidate and what they expect and deserve to have in a president."

But after Gore flamed Bradley Wednesday, he again took Bradley to task for his refusal to rule out any tax increase.

"You know there's a big difference between looking at the future of fiscal policy and imagining all kinds of different circumstances that can come up and saying that, 'Well, you have to have flexibility on the fiscal side' -- that's one thing," Gore said. "But it's quite another thing to propose a possible tax increase for no other reason that to try to cover your bases when you have this big gaping hole in a campaign proposal that you can't fill any other way."

But when pressed further as to whether or not he would ever propose a tax increase, Gore demurred. "Under current economic circumstances, I have no intention of proposing any tax increase," Gore said. But "nobody has a crystal ball."

The cat fight will come into public view on Dec. 17 when the two candidates are scheduled to square off in a New Hampshire debate.
salon.com | Dec. 8, 1999

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