How Al Came Back To Life

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Gore's policy team found fertile ground for attack even before Bradley delivered his health-care speech. The Bradley campaign had given the Associated Press a preview, and based on that Gore was able to denounce the plan as one that was too costly, did nothing to protect Medicare for the elderly and--the fatal blow--replaced Medicaid coverage for the poor with an inadequate substitute. The plan, says a Gore adviser, let the Vice President move "from the fantasy Bradley to the real Bradley." It also demonstrated a crucial difference between the camps. Bradley advisers told TIME they did not use polls or focus groups to test the plan's appeal or measure its weaknesses; to do so would have been to play old-school politics. But Gore's advisers immediately conducted polls to test their attacks. And Gore was ready to hurl them at Bradley on Oct. 27, when the candidates took the stage at Dartmouth College for their first televised debate. The debate was only a few minutes old when Gore charged that Bradley's plan would cost "more than the entire surplus over the next 10 years" and "shred the social safety net." The attack, a Bradley adviser says, "was a dagger to Bradley's heart," but he barely tried to wave it away. "We each have our own experts," he said mildly. "I dispute the cost figure that Al has used." Gore went into Dartmouth with his polls showing him 11 points behind in New Hampshire; after a week of savaging Bradley's health-care plan, he had cut his rival's lead to 3 points.

Bradley and his inner circle suffered from what others in the campaign call "the Gandhi Syndrome"--a turn-the-other-cheek style that assumed voters would recognize Bradley's innate superiority and be drawn by his refusal to match Gore blow for blow. But as Gore threw punch after punch, with some landing at or below the belt (Bradley would "eliminate" Medicaid, offer "a little $150 voucher" and wipe out federal nursing-home standards), Gandhi got rocked. He lost control of the campaign and never recovered. In conference calls with the candidate, Bradley supporters like Congressmen Jim McDermott of Washington, George Miller of California and Jerrold Nadler of New York would scream at him--"Quit letting him pound you!"--and he would reply, "Well, we're starting to take him on some." But the Congressmen didn't see it. "When I signed on," says one, "I thought, 'He's a basketball player. There's got to be a competitor in there.' But he didn't want to get his toga dirty." And when the news about Bradley's irregular heartbeat broke in December, his candidacy suffered another kind of blow. The condition, while not life threatening, underlined Bradley's basic problem. Faced with a robust, aggressive opponent, he appeared to be neither.