Word: bradleyism
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...launched his campaign last summer, he promised to maintain the fiscal discipline that the Democrats finally embraced when they agreed to balance the budget. While he would dip into the projected surplus to pay for his own health-care and poverty programs, he is not as free-spending as Bradley, whose health-care plan alone could consume most of the non-Social Security surplus for the next 10 years. The minute he matches Bradley's wish list, however, Gore opens himself to attack from Bush for reverting to the days of tax-and-spend orthodoxy...
...doesn't care about fiscal responsibility," says a Gore adviser about Bradley. "Nobody in the world will pass Bill Bradley's plan--nobody--because it will crowd out all other government spending, including education and military readiness." Economists note that if current government spending simply keeps pace with inflation, the surplus never appears at all. Well, says Bradley spokesman Eric Hauser, "flexibility is part of the final decisions. If economic conditions change, we'll bear that into account." And besides, Hauser adds, "The Gore campaign has no credibility to analyze anyone else's budget numbers when they have...
...Gore camp, Bradley's policies have "a Rip Van Winkle quality," in the words of an adviser. "It's like he somehow missed the last decade of political thought." Gore should be able to get up and say that the most effective antipoverty program in American history is the economy we've now got. Crime is down, welfare rolls are down, the budget is balanced, and child poverty is actually at its lowest level in 20 years. Do you really want to change tactics...
There's just one problem: Gore can't make this argument, at least as long as Bradley is running ahead in New York and New Hampshire. He can't attack Bradley for being too leftist without annoying the party faithful he needs more than ever. Last week Gore scampered from one base camp to the next, promising to ban offshore oil drilling in Florida and California, making his own poverty speech, all quickly scheduled to share the headlines with Bradley's long-planned address. While Gore's speech was delivered in the language of personal responsibility--he would withhold federal...
...same time, Bradley's poverty speech was notable for some things he didn't say. He has been an outspoken critic of the 1996 welfare-reform bill, arguing that forcing welfare mothers into the work force "cuts the bonds between mother and child" and that without subsidized child care and health coverage, too many could fall through the cracks. Yet in his speech, he did not call for a repeal of the time limits or work requirements. Gore seized on the omission. "He didn't propose to repeal it, did he?" he said to TIME. "It tells me that upon...