Book Excerpt: 'Smashmouth' by Dana Milbank (Pt. 2)

— -- Sure, I had been warned: a Bill Bradley speech could be something less than electrifying. Still, I am not quite prepared for what happens when the aspiring presidential candidate takes the podium at the University of Notre Dame one night late in the fall of 1998.

His lecture is titled "Meaning in American Politics," but it might have been better titled "Dreaming in American Politics," for it proves a powerful soporific.

As Bradley stands with his glasses low on his nose, a red necktie not quite covering his lengthy torso, he reads straight from his prepared text in a slow drone. After ten minutes, many of his three hundred listeners begin to rest their heads in their hands; after twenty minutes, several are slouching in their seats. After half an hour, a guy in front of me in a Notre Dame jacket falls asleep, his head hitting his chest, bouncing up, and hitting his chest again. I look down the row and find several others in various states of repose. The university's venerable president emeritus, Father Hesburgh, who is sitting next to me, emits what sounds very much like a snore.

Oblivious, Bradley drones on, about how "capital follows knowledge" and how "we can reclaim the public sector as a venue for the source of our fulfillment." Bradley roams from religion to income inequality, from Edmund Burke to Virginia Woolfe. After forty-five minutes, it begins to sound like a filibuster. Bradley waves his right hand in a continuous circle. Is it a hypnoic gesture? Is there enough oxygen in the room? I am growing sleepy. Sleepy. Sleepy. Fortunately, Father Hesburgh snores again, breaking the spell.

"I was listening to everything he said — when I was awake," admits Tim Casale, the fellow in the Notre Dame jacket, when I confront him after the speech. Casale, a junior, is from New Jersey, and he wanted to see whether Bradley really sounded like the kind of guy who could challenge the vice president in 2000. "You look at the Democratic Party and you see Al Gore getting the nomination," Casale says. He's more convinced of that than ever after Bradley's talk. "He made a lot of interesting points, but nothing huge," Casale says. "It seemed there was something missing, like a spark."

That question, whether Bradley has the spark, is the central issue facing the candidate as he prepares for a presidential run. He has the resume, the policies and the instinct to mount a challenge to Gore, but does he have the fortitude? Can he bring himself down from his lofty heights to engage in a tough and nasty fight with Gore? Can he play smashmouth politics?

Bradley is again flirting with a presidential run, just as he flirted in '88, '92 and '96. This time, it appears, he's actually planning on doing it. With Gephardt declining to run, he's arguably the only Democratic candidate with a national stature that could rival Gore's. His famous resume can be recited by nearly everyone: basketball All-American at Princeton, captain of the 1964 Olympic basketball team, Rhodes Scholar, Hall-of-Famer who led the Knicks to two NBA championships before getting himself elected to the U.S. Senate on his first run for office in 1978. His attraction now is he's the un-Clinton: straight as an arrow, earnestly bookish, squeaky clean.

And boring. Bradley has developed a reputation for being one of the most cerebral and remote figures in American politics, a man not of the people, but above the people. Americans will indeed be looking for an honest man like Bradley to replace the shifty Clinton. But when they get a glimpse of the clean and good Bradley on the campaign trail, they may decide a rascal like Clinton isn't such a bad thing, after all. Ideologically, Bradley is little different from the Democrats' standard-bearer, Gore; stylistically, he is even more plodding. Bradley stands a chance if Gore stumbles in a campaign finance scandal or an economic downturn. But after Clinton's resurgence in November's midterm elections, Gore, as the heir-apparent to a popular president, appears invincible.

"People always said I would pick the time when it was hardest to do," Bradley told an audience recently. "We may be approaching that time." All signs are that Bradley wants to run. Officially, he says he will decide by January whether he and his wife "want to jump off a 50-story building," as he puts it. But Bradley is being less coy than usual, and his friends and advisers are putting out the word that he'll do it. "It certainly seems like it," says Marcia Aronoff, his staff chief for 12 years in the Senate. "He's serious about it," says Ed Turlington, who runs Bradley's three-person office now.

The ever-cosmic Bradley himself, in an interview, says he is searching to see whether his "ability matches the moment." Gore's commanding lead, he insists, has nothing to do with his decision. "The only given in politics is whatever you think will happen won't happen," he says. "You don't make this kind of life decision on a tactical basis. It's an internal issue not related to external dynamics." In a sense, that seems absurd: How can a man prepare to run for the presidency without considering "external dynamics" such as whether or not he actually has a chance? But in another sense, this is genuine Bradley — and it explains much about his candidacies and noncandidacies. He is listening to an inner voice, and he will do whatever that inner voice tells him to do, no matter what anybody else thinks.

The inner voice told him not to run in '88 and '92 when everybody was begging him to run; now it seems to be telling him to run at a time when nobody is asking him to. This is the politics of self-absorption: the candidacy is about Bill Bradley, not about America. A presidential run is the only missing credential on an otherwise perfect resume. "Ever write your own eulogy, the perfect eulogy you'd like your friend to read at your funeral, to see if you're living up to it?" Bradley asks during his Notre Dame speech. Then he offers a favorite quotation: "The tragedy is to die with commitments undefined, convictions undeclared and service unfulfilled." The next day, I ask Bradley whether that quotation represents a bit of self-reflection for him. "It certainly resonates with me," he tells me. "The commitment and the convictions are there. The question is whether the service is fulfilled."

It's also not clear whether Bradley can muster the mechanics of a presidential run. The only real threat to Gore is a big bank account, and Bradley doesn't have one. He hasn't raised any serious money since 1990, and it was widely reported that he was having trouble raising funds for his '96 reelection to the Senate. His PAC (political action committee), called Time Future, handed out $81,000 this year through mid-October; Gore's PAC, by contrast, contributed nearly $1.3 million to Democratic candidates this year. Bradley, to his credit, is a fierce advocate of campaign finance reform, but this could limit his ability to raise the $10 to $25 million in funds he needs to run.

Bradley doesn't exactly dazzle on the campaign trail. He seems to take some pride in his public-speaking troubles. In his 1996 memoir, Time Pres-ent, Time Past, he cited a description of his 1992 Democratic convention speech as "by far, the most wooden speech of the evening. . . . The expressions of his face were clownishly inappropriate, as if someone else, not he, were controlling them." After six years of speeches, little has changed. At the Notre Dame speech, he appears alternately dyspeptic and tongue-tied, stumbling twice on the phrase "pretty penny pincher," making a phony spitting sound, then trying the phrase again. But Bradley's problem is not strictly oral; he has a way of showing disdain for voters' concerns if they don't match his own. In 1990, he almost lost his reelection bid when he refused to say what he thought of Governor Jim Florio's tax increase, even though voters were demanding his opinion. Bradley came across as arrogant and evasive, and barely beat the then-unknown Christine Todd Whitman. "I got the message," Bradley declared in a news conference after the election. But even then he refused to answer the question.

While many question Bradley's viability as a candidate, few doubt he's a man of conviction and substance. He spent thankless years in the Senate devoting himself to arcane issues such as strategic petroleum reserves and tax reform. He also made himself an expert on Russia and trade policy. He is perhaps the party's best spokesman on race, in part an outgrowth of his basketball experience, and he has also been a leading voice in the civil-society movement, which encourages nongovernmental groups to assume a greater role. In many matters he aligns himself with the reform-minded, New Democratic wing of the party; he favors a muscular foreign policy and free trade. And when it comes to personal behavior, the man is clearly no Clinton: Bradley would never have an "inappropriate relationship" with his interns; he probably wouldn't be able to pick them out of a lineup.

But for all his depth and decency, Bradley will be hard pressed to convince people that his ideas are somehow different from Gore's. The vice president long ago established himself as the party expert in technology, the environment and the New Economy — ideas upon which any Bradley campaign would be based. Also, Bradley's record in the Senate was deliberative to the point of squishiness. In the 1980s, he campaigned against aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, then decided to support it, then changed his mind again. In 1990, despite his hawkish reputation on foreign policy, he publicly criticized President George Bush for giving up too soon on sanctions against Iraq, and he later voted against authorizing military action against Iraq. Even Bradley loyalists say there's not much room between his philosophy and Gore's. "In terms of issues, most people would think they're pretty much the same," says Rick Wright, a businessman and longtime friend who played basketball with Bradley at Princeton.

What, then, is the message? Bradley acknowledges his policies are similar to Gore's. "A lot of time it isn't what you say but how it's received," he says. In other words, it's less about the message than the messenger. Already, Bradley has been aiming for the high ground in 2000 by knocking Clinton, something Gore can't do. "The presidency is only a potential," he says at Notre Dame. "It can be grand . . . or it can be less grand, as it has been from time to time," he adds with a smirk. "Could the presidency ever be the same after this? Absolutely. Every president can fill the office. It's fluid and open for whoever is next."

Another angle Bradley may try against Gore is that of outsider. Bradley, since leaving the Senate, has spent the last two years in a number of strategic positions: a teaching job at Stanford (where he courted Silicon Valley), an advisory position at J. P. Morgan & Co. (where he wooed Wall Street), a stint as commentator for CBS News (which maintained his visibility) and now a teaching job at Notre Dame (from which he can collect Chicago money). It wasn't long ago that Bradley, announcing his departure from the Senate, famously declared that "politics is broken." Politics is still broken, but Bradley now sees himself as fixer. "To say the system is broken without trying to change it is irresponsible," he says. Politics "is not beyond being able to fix. It starts with a politician who is true to his convictions." Hmmm, wonder who that might be.

Bradley has often said he set four criteria for himself when deciding on the 1988 race. He required a deep, "novelistic" sense of the country, a foreign policy not learned from briefing books, a team that could win and govern, and an ability to communicate with voters. "I looked in the mirror and said I wasn't there, so I didn't do it," Bradley says now. In 1992, "I was ready but something in me said don't do it." In that case, he was lucky: his wife developed breast cancer that year. Now, his wife is well and his daughter has gone off to college, and this time, he says, "the four criteria are met." Still, he tells me he now has a fifth consideration, deciding whether he can "most effectively lead the country at this moment."

His decision-making has a mysterious, almost mystical quality. "It's a kind of subconscious pattern," says Wright, who likens it to the philosopher Kierkegaard's leap of faith. Why didn't Bradley run before? "I don't think even he knows," Wright says. Bradley is inarguably the only presidential candidate who makes decisions like a nineteenth-century philosopher.

But if his decision-making is other worldly, Bradley's preparations for 2000 have been conventional. First is the obligatory campaign book. Bradley once resisted using his basketball superstar status in politics, but now he consciously links the two. The book, Values of the Game, has a basketball on the front, a photo of young Bradley in uniform on the back, and a foreword by coach Phil Jackson. No longer Senator Tax Policy, he's once again Dollar Bill, drawing an unbroken line between himself and Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, even bad boy Dennis Rodman.

The book is about life lessons drawn from sports, and about the author's successful use of such lessons. "In the U.S. Senate, along the campaign trail, or in any number of projects I became involved with after Princeton, it was the same story," he writes. "I was determined that no one would outwork me." Even in retirement, Bradley continues an almost manic work ethic. At a book signing in South Bend, the manager in the Barnes & Noble wants him to sign a few stock copies, but Bradley, beckoning to a pile of a couple hundred books, declares to the surprised workers, "Let's get 'em all done." It was a bit like a free-throw practice; the bookstore staff would open and pass the books in an assembly line, and Bradley would sign. "We're a team!" he cheered.

Bradley is using his current role as a lecturer at Notre Dame, like his earlier gig at Stanford, to polish a presidential message. His syllabus for the seminar he's teaching at Notre Dame requires "a four-page paper for Senator Bradley which addresses . . . what they believe a presidential candidate in the year 2000 should address both as candidate and president." "He's testing the waters with us for a possible presidential run," says Mary Beth Lasseter, a student in the seminar. "He wants to see how it plays with the youth, or so we've been told."

Bradley's reception in South Bend hasn't been altogether presidential. Anti-abortion activists have protested his presence at the Catholic school, even flying a banner over a Notre Dame football game urging "Drop Senator Bradley." The protests have caused Bradley to move about campus with a plainclothes policeman and to keep his whereabouts confidential. Nor is everybody lining up to see the six-foot-five superstar. At the Barnes & Noble book signing, only about fifty people come, an unusually low turnout for the store. "I guess noon is not a good time," Bradley says when the crowd disappears before his one-hour signing is over.

Bradley gets a much better reception in his home base of northern New Jersey, where I also follow him around for a day. If New Jersey were America, President Bradley could start planning his inaugural. When he arrives at a breakfast in West Orange, he gets spontaneous applause when he walks in the door and a standing ovation after he speaks. He is introduced by State Senate Minority Leader Richard Codey, who in the past called him "Abe Lincoln with a jump shot," and who this time declares that Bradley is "warming up" for a presidential run. The Essex County Democratic chairman, Thomas Giblin, is showing off a "Bill Bradley for President 2000" button, which he made himself. "I appreciate that," Bradley says to Giblin. "I really do." The reception is much the same for Bradley later in the morning at a festival in Cliffside Park, where a local sheriff candidate calls Bradley "the next president of the United States" and someone else greets him as "Mr. President."

But, of course, northern New Jersey is not America. And even in Jersey there is the occasional reminder that reality will likely intrude on Bradley's presidential ambitions. Doug Bern, a candidate for Bergen County freeholder and one of the Democrats for whom Bradley is campaigning in Cliffise Park, lets it slip that he "wouldn't be a Bradley man" in 2000. "I don't know if he has the fortitude to do it," says Bern, noting that Bradley "left us in the lurch" when he fled politics in 1996. "He missed his wave," Bern says, as Bradley works the crowd. "Sure, he's Mr. Clean. He's a good man. But Americans care about job performance, not character, and that's how it should be. Guys like Gore and Gephardt stayed in there and did the heavy lifting. I'd go with somebody who stayed in there, like Gore."

That question, about Bradley's willingness to mix it up in the rough-and-tumble world of presidential politics, will be his greatest obstacle on the campaign trail. "He's the Meg Greenfield, Lehrer Newshour choice," says one Democratic operative. "He doesn't want to get his hands dirty." Time magazine quoted a former Bradley aide as saying, "Bill wants very much to be president. But he doesn't particularly want to run for president." I ask Bradley about that line. "Whoever said that hasn't seen me campaign," he protests. "Campaigning is like playing basketball. It's full of joy, it's unscripted, it's unknown, it's invogorating." And if the campaign lowers him to the gutter, so be it. "You have to go with your convictions, and if your convictions put you in the pit that's where you have to be."

Bradley says he's ready to descend into the pit; whether or not that's true will take some time to learn.

Back in the JugGoreNaut, there are few worries about Bradley.

NEXT: Gore Campaigns Like an Underdog…

Permission is granted to ABCNEWS.com by Basic Books to reproduce thisexcerpt from the book Smashmouth: Two Years in the Gutter with Al Gore and George W. Bush by Dana Milbank. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.