A Heave From Half Court

CBS News.com's Sarah Morton examines Bill Bradley's campaign and finds that the former basketball star's presidential candidacy is still very much a long shot proposition.

In the case of Al Gore, there's plenty to pick at, and we've had seven years to warm up. As the vice president works to find his footing, his challenger, former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, is pushing his way into the national consciousness, thanks in part to his strong poll showings in New Hampshire. He's leading Gore in most Granite State polls, and that momentum has been strong enough to distract attention from the very real problems he faces.

Could Bradley, still a month away from the first actual, binding votes in campaign 2000, accomplish the unexpected and win the Democratic nomination? Sure, but he'll have to surmount some formidable hurdles in order to do so.

The primary system is stacked against Bradley. Since the goal is to win delegates who will unflaggingly wave your poster and wear your hat at the Democratic National Convention, it's not helpful to Bradley that Gore has some 800 "superdelegates" already built in: Senators, members of Congress, and party members who've already hitched their wagons to the vice president's star. So the primary process presents an extra obstacle to Bradley - he needs to get lots of delegates fast if he's to combat the inertia that often sends folks into the front-runner's camp.

The key, of course, to the senator's strategy is to pull off a dramatic showing in New Hampshire, and hope that propels him so mightily into the national consciousness that voters in the other primary states will start to fall like ripe fruit into his hands.

But a win in New Hampshire will seem less astonishing and fresh if it comes after seven weeks of polls showing him beating Gore. So before the horses are even out of the gate, the challenger is facing an "expectations" dilemma - he has to do win handily in New Hampshire to prove anything.

Say he manages that. A lustrous primary season doesn't necessarily await; winning New Hampshire is no guarantee of success. After all, Pat Buchanan won the Republican primary there four years ago, and now he's reduced to battling Donald Trump for the title of legitimate leader of a fractious fringe party.

Whatever Pat Buchanan's problems are, at least most folks know who he is and what he believes in. Bradley is less defined for a lot of voters. As the challenger, he needs to show how he's different from the semi-incumbent vice president, and it's a neat trick to do that without belittling the accomplishments o the Clinton-Gore administration.

As a Democrat, you want to take some credit for the economic successes of the last seven years; as a challenger, you want to show that things aren't that rosy. Bradley hasn't quite managed that, which is why some critics say he and Gore are too much alike. And Bradley hasn't made a national dent in Gore's armor. In a CBS News poll conducted about two weeks ago, Gore led Bradley among Democratic primary voters by a comfortable margin of 53-28 percent.

Moreover, Bradley has shown weakness with two constituencies that are absolutely essential to the success of any Democratic presidential candidate: blacks and women. In the same CBS News poll, Bradley only managed to pick up the support of 24 percent of black Democratic primary voters. Gore, on the other hand, was the choice of 59 percent of black Democrats. Among women Democratic primary voters, Gore led Bradley by a margin of 56-22 percent. Bradley's showing among women was down from 28 percent in a CBS poll conducted the previous month.

These discouraging numbers aren't Bradley's only problems. It's also the case that the issues that he has sought to make his own either seem to belong to someone else or to be floating out there unclaimed. He's been pushing his plan for providing health coverage to the uninsured, but while a recent Pew poll shows voters care plenty about health insurance, only nine percent of them think Bradley has been worrying about it too. It's likely Gore has done more than anybody to draw attention to Bradley's health care ideas, and that attention has not always been accurate or flattering.

Similarly, one of Bradley's other big concerns, campaign-finance reform, is a wallflower. Only one percent of Americans polled most recently by CBS list it as the most important problem facing government. And if Americans can stop yawning long enough to think about campaign finance reform, a recent Pew poll shows they're more likely to associate the idea with John McCain than with Bradley. That may shift after the "we want to buck the system!" joint appearance by Bradley and McCain; but it'll have to shift a lot to have any impact. CBS polls show that Bradley is losing ground to McCain among voters who call themselves as independents.

If you can't draw a sharp outline of yourself within your own party, and if another kinda-different-but-not-completely-off-the-track candidate is stealing your thunder among independent voters, what can you do?

One answer is "fight harder," which Bradley, until very recently, seemed reluctant to do. For the high-income, cerebral types who dig Bradley, his cool reluctance to enter the fray has been a selling point, but a former New York Knick should know you can't play the whole game outside the three point arc - sooner or later you have to muscle into the paint and get scrappy.

Perhaps the most refreshing news for Bradley, though, is that no oe cares all that much now. Poll data before the primary season has begun is as diverting as sand castles, and as permanent. A Pew poll this month says only 16 percent of Americans are closely following the election process right now. That leaves 84 percent of the nation who may not know or care about any of the things mentioned here; 84 percent of people waiting for a barrage of candidate and media attention to wash over them. Lucky souls!

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