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Morning News

Election 2000: Bradley Bows Out as Campaign Asks What Went Wrong; Mean Campaign Expected as Gore, Bush Try for McCain Supporters

Aired March 9, 2000 - 10:04 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Bradley formally bows out of the race at the top of the top of the hour, 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time. And CNN's Jeanne Meserve now with a look at the race that barely went beyond the starting blocks, and why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As young staffers shot hoops in the parking lot of Bradley headquarters, their boss was holed up inside in phone-mode, calling supporters to give thanks and get advice.

QUESTION: Any thoughts on tomorrow.

BILL BRADLEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Any thoughts? No, no thoughts.

MESERVE: Bradley was described as upbeat but subdued. Senator Paul Wellstone, who became a fixture at Bradley events, joking about their contrasting heights, says the campaign had shortcomings.

SEN. PAUL WELLSTONE (D), MINNESOTA: And I think our campaign needed to do a better job. We needed to have a more galvanizing campaign. We needed a more galvanizing campaign so that we could break through and connect to people, and obviously, we didn't quite get there.

MESERVE (on camera): But other friends say the mistakes Bradley and his campaign made were insignificant. They say the real problem was that Bradley had two opponents, Al Gore and John McCain.

(voice-over): Senator Bob Kerrey, a Bradley supporter and surrogate, says the odds of winning against a sitting vice president were never good, particularly in this rip-roaring economy, particularly when the vice president has spent seven years collecting political IOUs.

But Kerrey says what really took the air out of Bradley's tires was the McCain phenomenon. Republican Congressman Jim Leach concurs.

REP. JIM LEACH (R), IOWA: The McCain factor probably was the difference in Bill not winning New Hampshire. And if Bradley had won New Hampshire, you might have had a very different momentum in the whole primary process.

MESERVE: Leach, a friend and admirer of Bradley's since their days at Princeton, says one of Bradley's assets was perhaps a drawback in the context of a presidential bid.

LEACH: Sometimes, to win, one has to go for a jugular that isn't always desirable, and often very high decency is reflected in those that lose.

MESERVE: Bradley's friends are not ready to predict how high a profile he will have in the Gore campaign, but Bob Kerrey believes Bradley is ready to play on the Gore team if the vice president is willing to toss him the ball.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: We may discern more about the role Bradley might play in the Gore campaign at his press conference due to begin here in an hour's time. We may also get Bradley's take on exactly what went wrong with this campaign, which only a few months ago looks so potent and powerful -- Bill.

HEMMER: Jeanne, there's a whole lot to analyze here with Bill Bradley's announcement, again, expected in 55-minutes' time. Is there a sense from pundits as to when his campaign broke down, though?

MESERVE: Well, they're pointing to several strategic errors that were made. One was going to Iowa and spending so much time and money there. His chances never looked very good in the Iowa caucuses, because organization is so important there, and Al Gore definitely had the advantage. Strategists say he really should have gone to New Hampshire, put all his eggs in that basket. He came close to catching Al Gore there, but he didn't. If he had won, it would have given a totally-different dynamic to this campaign. Another strategic error they're pointing to was his decision to go to Washington state and spend a week campaigning there for what was essentially a beauty contest when he had 15 really important contests coming up on Tuesday -- Bill.

HEMMER: All right, Jeanne Meserve, live there in West Orange, New Jersey. Jeanne, thank you.

A reminder to our viewers now: We'll have live coverage of Bill Bradley's announcement now scheduled for the top of the hour, once again, 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, 8:00 on the West Coast.

Now to Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Bill Bradley and John McCain were not competing for the same nomination, but in many ways they were fighting for the same supporters: disgruntled voters looking for a change. As the primary showed, Bradley languished in McCain's shadow on the campaign trail, and even today, as the men step aside, same thing's happening today.

CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider -- excuse me, Bill, I'm all choked up thinking about the end of their campaigns. Good morning, welcome.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

KAGAN: Thanks for joining us right here in Atlanta, even though you're right across -- right across the room over there.

SCHNEIDER: I'm right here.

KAGAN: It seems like John McCain did a much better job galvanizing these people who are looking for a change than Bill Bradley did, and now the race is on to get those supporters. What do George W. Bush and Al Gore need to do to find those supporters in their camp?

SCHNEIDER: Well, the simple answer is reach for the center, although in the Bradley case he really in many ways opposed Al Gore from the left. I think it's going to be much easier for Al Gore to unite the Democratic Party. Look, the Democratic Party was pretty united in the primaries on Tuesday. Al Gore just wiped out Bill Bradley in state after state, 60- and 70-percent margins all over the country.

John McCain is a tougher challenge, because he recruited a lot of supporters, many of them were not Republicans. His message was he wanted to change the Republican Party, he wanted to refocus it away from conservative ideology towards a reform message, and I think he's going to wait for some signals that George Bush is more receptive to that message than he was in the campaign.

KAGAN: Those Super Tuesday ballots are barely counted and you already heard Al Gore making comments that would seem to court those McCain supporters. You heard him say that even before George W. Bush.

SCHNEIDER: They're both looking for the McCain supporters, because really they weren't part of a political party, many of them had never voted before, they were new voters, this was a real phenomenon. It was surprising to a lot of people, because times are good in the country, Americans are happy, but they're not happy with one thing: with the way our politics and our government are run, and that was McCain's message. That has to change, because it's out of line with everything else going on in this country. And McCain's message is being heard by both parties, so in a way it's a pool of voters that both Gore and Bush will be competing for in the general election campaign.

KAGAN: The two candidates that are left standing are both candidates that played hard and went to the negative in some aspects during the primary so far. Looking ahead towards November, do you think this is going to be a mean campaign?

SCHNEIDER: Yes, in a word, it will be, because it's going to be a very close campaign, because while things are going well in the country Bush has got to give voters a reason to reject Al Gore, otherwise why not stick with the same guy who brought us eight years of -- the same party that brought us eight years of peace and prosperity. And Gore has got to create the impression that if the people vote for George Bush they're taking a risk, that he may be controlled by sinister right-wing forces in the Republican Party and will change the direction of the country and we may lose our prosperity, and we may put the country at risk, and he may be controlled by the Republican Congress. So, each candidate is going to raise some warnings about what will happen if we vote for the other guy.

Yes, that's going to be a pretty negative campaign.

KAGAN: We'll have to watch and see. Bill Schneider, thanks for joining us this morning.

SCHNEIDER: Pleasure.

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