Bradley Calls Clinton Weak on Poverty

By CATHLEEN DECKER

June 17, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES POLITICAL WRITER

Overshadowed this week by two other presidential candidates and one newly unretired basketball coach, Democratic presidential contender Bill Bradley jabbed the Clinton administration Wednesday for failing to lift children out of poverty during its seven-year tenure.

His remarks, delivered in a speech at the downtown skid row children’s services center Para los Ninos, were aimed at the only other Democrat in the race: front-runner and Vice President Al Gore, who on Wednesday formally announced his candidacy.

“After seven years of the first two-term Democratic administration since Franklin Roosevelt, the percentage of American children living in poverty has barely changed,” Bradley declared. “. . . There are still as many children living in poverty as there were after 12 years of Republican administrations.”

And, he added, “the people in this Democratic administration have looked at these same statistics of child poverty for seven long years. But what have they done? They’ve tinkered around the margins.”

Bradley declined to say what the administration should have done, or why he thought it only tinkered with poverty programs. He declined to say what he would do. He even excised from his speech a planned endorsement of two ideas--support for a higher minimum wage and an expansion of the earned income tax credit--on the grounds that he would detail his positions in the fall.

Across town, Bradley’s buddy and campaign volunteer Phil Jackson was debuting as the philosopher-coach of the Lakers. On skid row, Bradley was continuing his own slightly mystical effort, enumerating the problems dear to him and counting on voters to stick around for several months to hear his solutions.

Indeed, Democratic voters are being treated these days to a near reversal of the traditional terms of a primary contest: Bradley, who trails Gore 56% to 26% in California according to a new Times poll, is addressing topics solely in general terms, though occasionally the problems involve thorny subjects like race relations.

And Gore--trying to separate himself from Bradley, the Republican front-runner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush and, not the least, President Clinton--is laying on the details, abandoning the rose-colored generalities that usually flavor front-runner campaigns.

Bradley, a former forward for the New York Knicks--where he was a roommate of Jackson--and three-term New Jersey senator, is midway through a nine-day swing in California. The tour is notable for its duration and timing--nine months before the California primary--and indicates the state’s potential heft in the 2000 presidential contest.

It has been out-publicized, however, by circumstance. On the first day of Bradley’s tour, Bush made his maiden voyage to Iowa, drawing the attention of the political world. On Wednesday, Gore formally announced his candidacy. In between, much of the Bradley-related buzz revolved around campaign volunteer Jackson, who was scheduled to appear at a fund-raiser tonight.

Throughout, Bradley has hewn closely to his pre-trip vow not to get specific as he talked about topics like water, health care and, on Wednesday, poverty.

Interestingly, Bradley and Gore trod on the same rhetorical turf Wednesday. Gore, speaking in his home town of Carthage, Tenn., said the nation was suffering from “the time deficit in family life” and vowed to fight “the crisis in the American family.”

Bradley said the level of childhood poverty was “intolerable.”

“Despite seven years of prosperity, millions of parents are holding down several jobs just to make ends meet,” he said. “Two-thirds of our children experience parental care as a hurried effort between too much work and too little sleep. Parents, rich and poor, suffer from time poverty. . . .

“Technology races on, we move at the speed of light, but our children are becoming a blur. Everywhere I look these days I see decent people who are parents struggling against odds that would test the best among us.”

The former senator said solving family problems would require a joint effort by employers, government and parents. Yet he cautioned against demonizing parents.

“Let us not trash our nation’s parents; let’s treasure them,” he said. “Let us not take them to task; let’s give them a hand.”