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Jewish World Review Feb. 7, 2000 / 1 Adar I, 5760
Chris Matthews
The two mavericks who made such a showing in New
England, Bill Bradley and John McCain, are heading to
the Golden West.
For awhile here, it didn't look like that would happen.
Had Al Gore scored a smashing triumph in the
Democratic primary on Tuesday, as the late polls
predicted, the challenge by the former NBA star and
U.S. senator from New Jersey might now lie dead in the
New Hampshire snow.
Tuesday's contest was decided for the vice president by
just 6,649 votes, 75,449 to 68,800. But it gives Bradley
the credibility to wage a competitive campaign through an
avalanche of Democratic primaries on the first Tuesday in
March: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho,
Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri,
New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island,
Vermont, Washington.
California is, of course, the grand prize in this huge cache
of delegates.
Based upon his strong showing in New Hampshire, Bradley could pose a
major threat to the vice president in New York and Connecticut, in whose joint
media market he enjoyed a decade of stardom with the celebrated Knicks. His
boyhood roots along the Mississippi River give Bradley the chance to win in his
native Missouri.
But for Bradley, the next and last opportunity to crack Gore's sense of
inevitability lies in California.
It is there that his Kennedyesque appeal to ideals, his Olympian celebrity and
maverick challenge to politics-as-usual can truly be tested against his rival's
case for Clinton-Gore continuity.
John McCain, whose New Hampshire campaign proved an uneasy night of the
soul, awoke Wednesday with his own California dream. His 19-point win over
Texas Gov. George W. Bush in New Hampshire confirmed his strategy of
skipping the Iowa caucuses the week before.
If he wins in South Carolina on Feb. 19, he will prove the most daring
island-hopper since Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He will have positioned himself
for an all-out struggle with Bush in California and elsewhere on March 7.
Who wins in California may well depend on a number of factors. Bradley has
the money to compete with Gore, but does he have the message?
Can he sharpen his case to Democrats and independents that Bill Clinton's
pliant vice president is not a credible champion of reform?
McCain, who may lack the money to compete with the well-financed Texas
governor, has no lack of message. His Tuesday night attack on the
"truth-twisting politics of Bill Clinton and Al Gore" showed that may be the
toughest, best line of the 2000 campaign so far.
McCain is sounding like a man who has already become his party's presidential
nominee. More to the point, he's campaigning like a man who might win.
If that sells in the South in the next two weeks, the voters of California may find
themselves with two decisive presidential contests the morning of March 7, with
the country rooting for the mavericks to knock off the well-born
02/02/00: Clinton's final campaign: Take the blame
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