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The gloves stay on
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March 2, 2000 | LOS ANGELES -- As if to underscore the point, the Rev. Jesse Jackson dropped by the pressroom immediately before the debate began to announce his bold, out-on-a-limb endorsement of Vice President Al Gore, who leads by double digits in almost every one of the 16 states holding primaries March 7. Here in California, according to a Los Angeles Times poll released Wednesday, Gore leads Bradley 54 percent to 11 percent. While the pressroom zeitgeist was that the debate was a waste of time -- the New Yorker's Joe Klein joked that it was the first presidential debate he'd ever seen held after the campaign was over -- Bradley's presentation was serene. He didn't address Gore's past as a conservative congressman until the tail end of the 90-minute debate. He appeared calm and cool -- as a man at peace. Bradley is still convinced that when voters look at him, and then look at Gore, there shouldn't even be a question in their minds over who should be president.
When CNN's Jeff Greenfield brought up the "elephant in this room" -- i.e., that members of the Bradley press corps have all but taken out bets on when the candidate will withdraw -- Bradley said his lagging status isn't as bad as it seems. He trails Gore in delegates 41 to 27, he said. And only a few hundred thousand voters have cast their ballots so far, while Tuesday will bring 8.5 million to the polls. Then, he promised, his campaign will "take off." Gore spent the evening agreeing with almost every single utterance from his opponent's mouth. He chatted up the insurgent on the other side of the aisle, Arizona Sen. John McCain, lauding his remarks earlier this week about the intolerance of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, as well as his stance on tobacco and campaign finance reform. He seemed eager to take on his political photographic negative and likely GOP opponent, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, criticizing Bush for his controversial appearance at Bob Jones University and his stance on a number of social issues. Since both Democratic candidates agree on almost every single policy question under the sun, there was little discord. Gay and lesbian rights, campaign finance reform, gun control, racial profiling -- both men are lifetime subscribers to Democratic dogma. In fact, the harshest moment of the debate came when Greenfield pointed out that Bradley's and Gore's intolerance of race-baiting rhetoric seems awfully one-sided. Greenfield asked -- in language far more suitable for the CNN TV audience -- how the two could so easily decry Republicans on Bob Jones and the Confederate flag when their heads are squarely wedged up the nether regions of the Rev. Al Sharpton. In addition to libeling a prosecutor by accusing him of having raped Tawana Brawley, Sharpton has referred to Israel as "hell" and to Jews as "diamond merchants" and "little capitalist Zionists," and has contributed more than his share of ugly and hateful anti-white and anti-Semitic rhetoric to New York politics. "Don't you have the obligation to be equally forthright" against Sharpton's hate? Greenfield asked. (Sharpton, it should be noted, even got to ask a question at the previous Democratic debate at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.) Both Gore and Bradley said they condemned the language Sharpton had used in the past but were willing to give him a pass on it, since he's a voice and a force in New York politics. "In America we believe in redemption and the capacity of all of our people to transcend limitations they've made evident in their past," Gore said, before justifying his visit with the good reverend by saying it had been conducted cravenly, or, as he put it, "in private and not in public." "I think he has grown," Bradley said. "We have to allow people the right to grow." But Bradley wasn't so forgiving when it came to Gore's growth. After Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times coaxed him to explain the harsh negative attacks Bradley has been making in the past few weeks against Gore's history as a Southern conservative, Bradley argued that "when you run for president your public record is important. It defines who you are; it defines the fights you've made." Gore's sitting on the fence on abortion in the past, or his history of supporting the NRA, is OK, Bradley said. "He's evolved, and I'm glad he has evolved ... But I believe if you are consistent on matters of principle, that is relevant."
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