Democrats Highlight Prominent Liberals

L O S   A N G E L E S, Aug. 15 -- On a day when President Clinton symbolically handed Al Gore the leadership of the Democratic party, its members gathered to showcase the strongest voices of its liberal wing and to define the stakes of the forthcoming election.

On the second night of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley told those who passionately supported his primary fight to swallow their pride and stay motivated because “Now we’re in the general election and it’s absolutely essential that we get behind Al Gore.”

Bradley also presented Republicans and Democrats in stark contrast, suggesting that Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush’s efforts to appear compassionate were mere window dressing.

“But this election is not just a choice between two individuals,” Bradley said. “It’s a choice between two philosophies of leadership.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 racial divide and to ensure that every child has a decent public school.”

Beating the Bushes

Rev. Jesse Jackson, another of the left’s leaders and one of the party’s most powerful speakers, ridiculed the GOP candidate and son of the former president as “Baby Bush,” leading delegates in a chant of “America, Stay out of the Bushes!”

The Bush campaign quickly denounced Jackson’s remarks as the “ type of partisanship andbitterness the country would prefer to leave behind.”

Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer said in an e-mail fired off immediately following Jackson’s speech: “If Vice President Gore was serious about renouncing personal attacks and unkind words, he shouldn’t have allowed his surrogates to do it for him.”