How Gore's Campaign Went Off the Rails

How's Al Gore feeling these days? Never better, if you ask anyone inside his campaign--pumped, working without notes, even taking his jacket off. And those polls, the ones showing the Vice President suddenly running slightly behind Bill Bradley in New Hampshire and in a dead heat with him in New York, or suggesting Bradley is the better at beating George W. Bush? Not to worry. As the glum figures rolled in earlier this month, Gore told a top adviser, "I'm connecting. I feel it. We just gotta keep doing what we're doing."

To many anxious Democrats, it seems the only people Gore is connecting with these days are TV gag writers. It isn't just that Gore is running an old-fashioned, adviser-laden operation that is high on endorsements but low on energy; it is that he has squandered formidable leads in two categories that matter: money and sheer inevitability. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan endorsed Bradley last week, the New York Senator said publicly what many in the party have been whispering about Gore: "He can't be elected President."

Moynihan is one of only a handful of Capitol Hill Democrats putting their names behind Bradley, while Gore's campaign announces new lists of endorsements almost daily. But when it comes to placing their own futures on the line, other Democrats are hedging their bets. Even as House minority leader Dick Gephardt works hard to shore up Gore support among labor and in Iowa, he will not do anything to imperil his chances of taking back the House--which is why he is not squeezing hard on wavering members. "You've got to do what you need to get re-elected," the leader told one. "That's what I want the most." And Gephardt is working on a strategy in which his own goal is not tied to the outcome of the presidential campaign--putting money and muscle in close races where coattails won't save the Democrat.

Inside the Gore camp, things are increasingly fractious. In one particularly nasty meeting recently, campaign chairman Tony Coelho lashed out at his senior staff, and there are once again hints that firings are in the offing. Gore's team redoubled its efforts, cramming September with back-to-back fund raisers, but it has not dispelled rumors that third-quarter reports could show the campaign with less cash in the bank than Bradley has.

Gore operatives argue, rightly, that it is far better to face the Bradley Moment in late September than in late January. Sources tell TIME they are moving onto a war footing. Last week the campaign stepped up its plan for "engaging" Bradley, distributing talking points to Gore troops in New England. Gore officials say Bradley is already offering a variety of targets, including an embrace of gay rights that could backfire on that community, his vote for a school-voucher experiment and what they say is his mixed record on campaign-finance reform. More jabs are sure to come.