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Jewish World Review Jan. 3, 2000 /24 Teves, 5760
Chris Matthews
Danger No. 1 — The thoughtful NBA veteran wins the
nomination fight by licking Gore in New Hampshire on
Feb. 1, then delivering victories in New York,
Connecticut, New Jersey and California on March 7,
big-state triumphs that Gore can neither explain nor
answer.
Danger No. 2 — Bradley does well enough in these early
contests to keep his campaign alive through the spring
primary campaign, dividing the party between the Gore
forces loyal to Bill Clinton and Bradley insurgents wanting
a clean break from the scandal-stained past.
Danger No. 3 — Gore's scorched-earth war on
Bradley's positions, especially on health care, stirs such
deep bitterness that the former three-term New Jersey
senator leaves the Los Angeles convention floor angry,
his fans hostile to the man who impugned his honor.
The second and third dangers are not, it must be noted,
mutually exclusive. Gore's nasty attacks on Bradley could
succeed in the short term but fail in November. They
could convince Bradley supporters they were right all
along about Gore: He will do whatever it takes to pursue
his native ambition to be president, whether it's lavishing
praise on a just-impeached Clinton or piling dirt on his decent rival Bradley.
This is the danger inherent in Gore's negative response to the Bradley challenge.
Rather than defend his loyalty to Clinton, he has spent the last months of 1999
assaulting Bradley's loyalty to the party.
Bradley is a quitter, Gore has argued, as if choosing not to spend a lifetime in
the Senate represents a moral weakness. Bradley is not a "real" Democrat, the
vice president suggests, as if looking for new solutions to old problems in health
care and education constitutes heresy.
Such ward-heeler talk may sell with hardcore Democrats, the bloc voters who
flock to the party line, the "DNC types" who can be counted upon to back the
most familiar face in any given race.
Where the negative Gore campaign is likely to boomerang is among the more
independent voters looking for fresh ideas and, after the recent indignities in and
around the Oval Office, a clean slate.
These people are unlikely to be won over by a Gore campaign that condemns
Bill Bradley for offering precisely what they want: a fresh start. The nastier
Gore gets now, the more likely he is to lose such voters
12/30/99: Churchill's fighting words saved the century
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