At Iowa forum, Gore, Bradley outline similar visions for equality
January 18, 2000
Web posted at: 7:32 a.m. EST (1232 GMT)
DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) -- Vice President Al Gore and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley presented a united front on issues of racial and social equality Monday night in Des Moines -- a front that belied their increasingly bitter rivalry for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination.
Gore met up with Bradley, who has spent recent days campaigning throughout the Hawkeye State, on the stage of Des Moines' North High School for the Black-Brown candidate forum. The event was billed as a question-and-answer session meant to address the concerns of America's minority groups, most specifically African-Americans and Hispanics.
Gore had spent the earlier part of the day in Atlanta, where he marked the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday with a speech at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Bradley spent the last few days campaigning in Iowa, where he is far behind Gore in many polls.
The two could not have taken more strikingly similar tacts in playing to the crowd, which consisted of some 1,000 people invited by event sponsor Wayne Ford, Iowa's only African American state legislator, and a number of minority interest groups.
Both pledged that if elected to the presidency, they would strive to create an executive cabinet and a federal judiciary that accurately and fairly reflected the makeup of the nation's population.
"I will make sure that my administration reflects the diversity of the country," Bradley said, adding that as a member of the Senate, he had advisors who were "African American, Latino and Asian."
"This made me a better leader," he said.
Vice President Gore said he was "proud" to have been part of a Clinton-Gore Administration "that has broken every record for the inclusion of African Americans and Latinos" in the highest echelons of government, including the cabinet.
"If you entrust me with the presidency, I will seek to break that record," Gore said to an enthusiastic response.
The Black-Brown candidate forum capped a serendipitous King holiday for the two candidates. While Gore benefitted from his participation in King remembrance ceremonies in Atlanta, both hopefuls kept a very close eye on events in Columbia, South Carolina, where more than 45,000 people converged on the South Carolina Statehouse to demonstrate against the display of the Confederate battle flag atop the state capitol's rotunda.
The day's demonstration, and the national attention the issue has received since a Republican debate in West Columbia on January 7, provided Bradley and Gore with sufficient enough ammunition on Monday to question the propriety of flying the flag atop a state government building.
"The Confederate battle flag divides Americans, it is a hurtful symbol to millions and should be removed from any government institution," Gore said before lobbing a powerful grenade at the front-runners for the Republican nomination.
"Let's not forget that 60 percent of the population of South Carolina want the flag taken down," he said. "But the Republican candidates for president are so scared of the extreme right wing that they will tolerate intolerance lest they offend the offensive."
Both national Republican front-runner Texas Governor George W. Bush, and Arizona Senator John McCain have said repeatedly that they believe the flag issue is one for South Carolina to address.
"I'd pull it down today, Bradley said. It is an offense to our common humanity."
There were some moments of testiness between the two, though they were far outnumbered by opportunities for Gore and Bradley to express their agreement with each other's pronouncements.
As expected, the issue of their competing health care plans came to the fore for just a few minutes, with both saying their blueprints for a more equitable national health insurance system would broaden coverage for those earning low incomes and minority medical patients alike.
But their arguments mirrored similar exchanges on health care witnessed during their previous five debates.
Gore accused Bradley of seeking to replace the federal Medicaid insurance program for the poor and elderly with a $150 voucher that could be used to cover medical expenses. Such a voucher, Gore reasoned, would be "unacceptable."
Bradley shot back that his program would not provide a voucher per se, but would provide a "weighted average" for coverage that would differ by state, and "be adjusted over time." Under Medicaid, Bradley argued, only 10 percent of Iowa's poor children were eligible for any form of health insurance.
The two also exchanged sharp words during a brief discussion about racial profiling -- the controversial practice by law enforcement agencies of pulling over or detaining crime suspects based on their skin color or ethnicity.
Bradley said as president, he would issue an executive order to ban racial profiling within the federal government "immediately," while Gore said the first civil rights bill produced by a Gore Administration would outlaw the practice.
Bradley saw an open door and rushed in.
"You are part of an administration," the former senator said to Gore. "I want you to walk down that hallway, into (President Bill Clinton's) office, and say, 'sign this executive order today.'"
"I don't think President Clinton needs a lecture from Bill Bradley on how to stand up and fight for African Americans," Gore responded, earning him a powerful round of applause.
Nonetheless, the two party rivals did little to distinguish their visions for an all-inclusive, multi-ethnic executive branch.
They agreed educational opportunities for minorities should be expanded, agreed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be preserved at all costs, and agreed immigration laws should be structured in a way that will allow those who must flee tyranny to come to the United States freely.
And, they agreed that affirmative action should be preserved in the face of a long-sustained congressional GOP clamoring for its removal.
"I could never appoint someone to the Supreme Court who I thought would turn back the clock on civil rights," Bradley said, characterizing the criticism of affirmative action as "overblown."
Bradley, in a move designed to showcase his ability to lead a multi-ethnic White House, tried to distinguish his life before politics without drawing any distinctions to Gore. As a member of the New York Knicks basketball team in the early 1970s, Bradley said, his job was to take new white players who "didn't get it" or "used the wrong words" aside for a talking to.
"That stuff just wouldn't fly on the Knicks, I told them," Bradley said.
As a member of the Knicks, Bradley said he learned a lot, including the stark fact that he "will never know what it is like to be an African-American in this country.
"I can see," he said, but you can feel what it is like."
Monday's debate was the last for the two Democratic hopefuls before the Iowa caucuses, which will be held in just one week. The two will next face off on January 26, six days short of New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary.
Written by Ian Christopher McCaleb.
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