Facing the harsh reality of an unbroken string of primary defeats and a mounting delegate deficit, Bill Bradley '65 threw in the towel yesterday in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and declared his support for Vice President Al Gore in his bid for the presidency.
Speaking to supporters and the press in West Orange, N.J., yesterday, Bradley called for Democrats to unify behind Gore. "It is the tradition of the Democratic Party to fight hard during primaries and then unify and close ranks behind the nominee," he said. "And now it is time for unity."
Bradley stopped short of releasing his delegates, however, and said he would not serve as Gore's running mate.
In a statement yesterday, Gore said he was honored to have Bradley's support, calling Bradley, "a good man whom I respect greatly."
Just one hour after Bradley's announcement, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) declared he would suspend his bid for the Republican nomination. Coming off a long and often-bitter Republican contest, McCain did not endorse Texas Gov. George W. Bush yesterday, fueling speculation about McCain's plans for the general election.
McCain's near withdrawal leaves both remaining major party candidates to woo the support of the renegade candidate's backers, many of whom are registered Independents or Democrats who crossed party lines to vote for McCain.
Gore already has begun courting McCain supporters. Doug Hattaway, a national spokesman for the Gore campaign, said, "Gore specifically reached out to Independents and independent-minded Republicans" in his victory speech on Super Tuesday.
It is difficult to predict where McCain's supporters will end up, but University politics professor Larry Bartels said he guessed that those who identify themselves as Republicans or Democrats will likely vote in line with their party affiliations in the general election.
McCain also drew the support of people with no strong party identification, however. "People who were relatively uninterested in the political process became interested in McCain," Bartels noted, predicting that those individuals "are likely to tune out again" now that their renegade candidate has all but withdrawn.
What went wrong?
Bradley announced his candidacy from his home in Crystal City, Mo., in September amid great optimism, attracting the attention of the media and the public with his successful fundraising and groundswell of initial support.
Despite this early momentum — which carried him into the first primary contests with great optimism — Bradley's campaign ran aground on dual losses in New Hampshire and Iowa, and never really got up and running again. The candidate failed to win even a single state, and his four-point loss in the New Hampshire primary was the closest he came to victory.
University politics professor Fred Greenstein noted that Bradley faced an "uphill run" from the beginning, challenging an incumbent vice president in a time of economic prosperity. He added that the candidate's decision to manage his own campaign seems to have led to a number of strategic mistakes.
Bradley's defeat simply may have come down to a question of appeal, however. Contrasting Bradley's often-dry approach with McCain's enthusiasm, Greenstein said Bradley "didn't give a sense of fire and animation, that he was coming in to do something important, something you could identify with."
"He was too cerebral, too flat," he added.
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