Bradley calls Democrats to Gore-Lieberman standard
By Matt Smith/CNN
LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Former Democratic presidential challenger Bill Bradley put aside his hard-fought race against Vice President Al Gore on Tuesday and called on Democrats to join him in campaigning for the Democratic ticket in the fall.
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Bradley addresses the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night
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"Our country needs a Democratic president, a Democratic Congress and most important, a Democratic conscience. Electing Al Gore and Joe Lieberman is the right thing to do for our country," Bradley said.
The former New Jersey senator and professional basketball player spent 15 months running for president, before conceding to Gore in March. "It was a joyous journey, and I have the scars to prove it," he said.
"But now we're in the general election, and it's absolutely essential that we get behind Al Gore. I support him. I endorse him. I'll work hard for his victory."
Lieberman, the Connecticut senator Gore tapped as his running mate, will accept the vice presidential nomination Wednesday night. He made his first appearance in the Staples Center convention hall Tuesday night. Gore will formally claim the party's presidential nod Thursday night.
Bradley's speech focused on the issues that made up the core of his campaign -- reforming the laws governing campaign contributions, providing medical care to the uninsured, healing racial divisions and improving public schools.
Bradley said voters have a clear philosophical choice in November: "It's a choice between a Republican Party that is determined to give the fruits of our hard-won prosperity to those who don't need the help, and a Democratic Party that promises to use this great opportunity to provide care for the ill, to lift up millions from poverty, to heal the wounds of racial divide and to ensure that every child has a decent public school."
Bradley had a strong showing in the polls as the campaign opened in the fall of 1999, but his campaign foundered in the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire and sank completely after the March "Super Tuesday" primaries.
In July, Bradley offered his formal endorsement of Gore at an event in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Monday, he formally released the more than 400 delegates he won in the early campaign to support Gore in the convention roll call.
Bradley jabs at Bush-Cheney ticket
He did not mention Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, by name. But he did throw some elbows at Bush's theme of "compassionate conservatism" and the Republican display of diversity at their convention in Philadelphia two weeks ago.
"We don't window-dress diversity -- we're the party of diversity," he said. "We don't declare ourselves to be compassionate -- we've been acting compassionately for decades ... Don't read our lips -- watch what we do."
Nearly all of the New Jersey delegation and many delegates from other states held up Bradley placards as he took the stage before an enthusiastic audience in the Staples Center. His former campaign chairman, Doug Berman, watched the speech with the New Jersey delegates.
"I think he made clear what's at stake in this election and why it's important that the country elect Al Gore and Joe Lieberman as president and vice president," Berman said.
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Bradley calls on Democrats to remind the country of the party's longstanding values
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"He talked about the things he talked about during the campaign, but I think he made the point that they agree on so much. Al Gore doesn't disagree on the issue that we need universal health care. They have different views on how quickly we can afford to get there, but Gore's committed to that," said Berman. "Al Gore's committed to campaign finance reform, and he already picked someone who's one of its strongest advocates in the Senate, in Senator Lieberman, to be vice president."
While Bradley pledged to aid the Gore effort, Berman said he has been helping out Gore's campaign as well.
"The campaign's been over for five months. Most of the last five months I've been trying to focus on what's important, which is the general election. Five months ago I was tired. I certainly wanted a different outcome, but that's what primaries are about," he said.
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Bill Bradley addresses the Democratic National Convention
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'Never sell out'
The address came on a night when some of the party's most prominent liberal voices -- including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and two members of the Democrats' best-known political dynasty, Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Caroline Kennedy -- spoke to delegates before they handed the nomination to the more centrist Gore and Lieberman.
Bradley said Democrats should remind the country of the party's longstanding values, citing party heroes such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr. and John and Robert Kennedy. He decried the lack of progress toward ensuring that the nation's 44 million uninsured get access to health care, and urged the country to take action while its finances were in good shape.
Bradley called persistent poverty among children a "slow-motion national disaster," adding, "If we don't end child poverty in our lifetime, shame on me, shame on you, shame on all of us. And he called for campaign finance reform to "return politics to the people."
He ended on a hopeful note, however, urging young people to "never give up and never, never sell out."
"There's a great wave beginning in this country. I saw it and felt it practically every day now for a year," Bradley said. "And when it breaks, it will carry the trappings of political privilege with it. It will vanquish the insidious bond between big money and political decisions."
"It will break the grip of political lies on our imagination," he said. "It will put the people back in politics and usher in a new day full of hope and honesty, full of humanity and caring ... Let us have the courage to make that day come now."
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Wednesday, August 16, 2000
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