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Bill Bradley As Our Next President
BRADLEY COULD BE A SLAM DUNK
AS PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE
By David Warsh
The Boston Globe
October 25, 1998
Bill Bradley has been making
the talk show rounds with
his remarkable new book,
"Values of the Game." On its
surface, it consists of a
series of reflections on the
roundball life as the game
is played from schoolyards
to the National Basketball
Association.
Its chapters are titled
"Passion," "Discipline,"
"Selflessness," "Respect,"
"Perspective," "Courage,"
"Leadership,"
"Responsibility,"
"Resilience," and
"Imagination." It is
illustrated with wonderful
color photographs of men,
women and children playing
basketball. It costs $30 and
looks as though it were
designed for the coffee
table.
It is, of course, much more
than that.
Subtle and powerful, "Values
of the Game" is a campaign
document--as unorthodox and
excellent as the former
Democratic senator himself.
It makes the point that
Bradley would make a dandy
candidate for president.
Indeed, it seems to me that
there is nobody in a
position to run who would
serve the nation better.
Whether we can get him is
another question.
The conventional wisdom is
that the 1998 election is a
referendum on the Republican
campaign to impeach Bill
Clinton. It may be so. But
it is the presidential
election of 2000 that will
really set the course for
the new century. We ought to
focus on the nominations
early, not settle for an
accidental choice.
No matter what happens in
November, the next two years
are going to stink. Clinton
hating has gotten out of
hand, but the haters are
unlikely to achieve their
goal. The president seems
almost certain to serve out
his term. Only the next
election can begin to
dissipate the poison.
We all have our theories of
how this happened. Mine is
that the print media lost
its self-control. The
conversation about Clinton
went haywire after the last
election, when the editorial
page of the The Wall Street
Journal, William Safire of
The New York Times, and
Stuart Taylor Jr. in The
American Lawyer kicked up a
notch their discussion of
"the character issue," and
nobody else said, "No."
Then Kenneth Starr, who was
the stealth component of the
GOP's Contract with America,
got lucky with cat's-paw
Linda Tripp, and the rest is
history. "Slick Willy" most
definitely is in the dock
now. But then so is the
Contract with America.
It is not easy to find
points for negotiation in
the polarized discussion of
Clinton and Starr. One may
have to do with the meaning
of elections.
For example, I was talking
last week to one of the
wisest men I know, an
executive who runs much of a
large corporation. "If I'd
done that, I'd have been
thrown out long ago," he
said. "But you weren't
elected to your position," I
replied.
It is amazing how routinely
this crucial distinction is
glossed over. Partnerships,
corporations,
nonprofits--all exist to
serve a purpose. The purpose
is sovereign, and when a
leader imperils it, he or
she is ordinarily replaced
by whatever group of persons
is responsible for the
governance of the
organization.
The goverments of
democracies, on the other
hand, serve no purpose other
than to enhance the public
lives of their citizens, who
otherwise pursue their
private goals. The will of
the people is
sovereign--even in matters
of law. That's why we have
elections. It is why high
crimes--and not just "bad
character" or an
unprincipled perjury
trap--are required to
reverse elections.
There can no longer be any
doubt that Bill Clinton
posseses a seriously flawed
character (though whether it
is any more flawed than
Presidents Kennedy, Johnson
or Nixon will be a topic of
conversation for years to
come.) The next presidential
candidates, whoever they
are, are going to have to
run against Clinton, as much
as they must run against
each other.
That is why Vice President
Al Gore offers no balm
whatsoever for the nation's
wounds. The clamor for a
special prosecutor to
investigate campaign
financing in the 1996
presidential election (which
will be renewed after the
election next month) is all
about trying to place an
indelible black mark against
him. Even without it,
however, Gore is almost
certainly unelectable. His
partnership with Clinton
saddles him with too much
baggage.
Bill Bradley would make an
excellent Democratic Party
standardbearer. Phil
Jackson, his former New York
Knick teammate and Michael
Jordan's favorite coach,
says in his foreword to
"Values of the Game," "It
seems strange to me that
most readers of this book
will know Bill mostly as a
politician, and never had
the opportunity to see him
play."
But those with long memories
will recall his college
career at Princeton (and the
wonderful John McPhee
storybook, "A Sense of Where
You Are," that described
it). They will remember,
too, his years as a mainstay
of the Knicks, especially
the championship years of
1970 and 1973.
Bradley has been in the
public eye since McPhee's
text appeared in The New
Yorker in 1965. Like Bill
Clinton, he was a Rhodes
scholar, but there the
resemblance ends. Bradley
joined the Air Force after
Oxford, and served as team
representative of the Knicks
to the players' union during
the 10 years he played in
the NBA. In 1978 he was
elected to the U.S. Senate
from New Jersey and served
three terms. He stepped down
in 1996, saying, "I think
sometimes giving up power is
a form of power."
On economic issues, Bradley
is pretty widely acceptable.
True, he opposed the
Kemp-Roth income tax cuts
that inaugurated the Reagan
Era. But in 1986 he rose to
real prominence,
co-sponsoring with William
Roth the 1986 tax
simplification act--with its
two simple brackets and few
loopholes--that became the
centerpiece of the
brief-lived golden age of
tax equity, which Bill
Clinton ended in 1993.
Thereafter, Bradley became a
leading expert on global
economic coordination.
On social issues, too,
Bradley possesses traits of
character that recommend him
to the religious right, even
though his views on social
issues are relatively
liberal. Though he
represented New Jersey in
the Senate, he never severed
his Missouri roots (He was
raised in Crystal City, 30
miles south of St. Louis).
Long before it was
fashionable, he was a leader
in the Fellowship of
Christian Athletes.
The rap on Bradley is that
he's just too low
compression to compete
succesfully in a sound-bite
campaign. The flip side is
that he can come across as
downright Lincolnesque. He
has reactivated his
fund-raising operation, and
hired a political aide or
two. He says he will make
the decision later this year
whether to run.
If, as seems likely, the
2000 campaign is going to be
run on personal rectitude,
Bill Bradley is more
virtuous than George W.
Bush, the former owner of
the Texas Rangers baseball
team and current governor of
the Lone Star State. The
star athelete vs. the owner?
Isn't that an easy choice to
make?
E