OS ANGELES - Glancing up from their double lattes and cappuccinos, patrons of a trendy downtown cafe last week witnessed Bill Bradley peering in from the sidewalk, his right hand reaching toward them.
Bradley was on the move, urgently trying to close Vice President Al Gore's large lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. With little time to linger, Bradley paused, smiled, and pantomimed handshakes with coffee drinkers he couldn't touch.
So it goes in the winter of Bradley's campaign for the presidency. In ways he may not have imagined when he bet that he could overcome an incumbent vice president, Bradley is on the outside looking in.
All but pushed from the national stage by three consecutive primary losses and Arizona Senator John McCain's surging ascendance in the Republican contest, Bradley has seen McCain hijack the stardom and momentum that Bradley had once counted on seizing.
From the shadows, Bradley soldiers on, searching for a breakthrough, even as a sense of urgency infects some of his soldiers. ''If we don't toughen up,'' one of Bradley's national operatives said with unusual candor, ''Gore is going to win this thing.''
But how Bradley could ''toughen up'' enough to rescue his candidacy poses a quandary. He has made no secret of his charisma deficit, acknowledging in his 1996 book, ''Time Present, Time Past,'' that he had bypassed previous runs for the presidency because of ''my continuing stage fright, and my inability to rouse people as a speaker.''
As a consequence, Bradley is banking more on the power of his message. He is counting on defying polls that show the public is more comfortable with Gore's preference for incremental change than Bradley's sweeping plans to overhaul the health care system and eliminate child poverty.
And Bradley, convinced that his campaign is ''smarter'' than Gore's, is anticipating that voters will flock to him when they focus on the contest in the final countdown to the decisive March 7 primaries. ''I still think I have a great chance to be the nominee,'' he said before his sidewalk pantomime.
To that end, Bradley is planning a last-ditch, multimillion-dollar ad campaign that could make or break his candidacy. His advisers will not discuss the substance, tone, or breadth of the ad blitz, which is expected to start within a week after Saturday's Republican primary in South Carolina.
As a prelude, Bradley last week dusted off a television endorsement that basketball superstar Michael Jordan had taped for him before Christmas. The ad is airing from Maine to California, but there is scant evidence yet that Jordan's pitch will make the difference Bradley needs.
''What it could do for Bradley is cause voters to look seriously at him for the first time,'' said Dan Payne, a Boston-based Democratic consultant who is neutral in the presidential race. ''But it's up to Bradley to persuade them that he will do things that are worthy of their support.''
The danger of Bradley's demise is palpable, as polls show him trailing badly in the largest of the 15 states that go to polls March 7. If he fails to meet his minimum goal of winning at least some of the states, Bradley could mothball his campaign by March 8. Until then, Bradley has two major opportunities to trip up Gore: debates on Feb. 21 in Harlem and March 1 in Los Angeles. In their last debate, in New Hampshire, Bradley launched his first offensive against Gore, forcing the vice president to go on the defensive for days.
Bradley may need fresh ammunition if he is to break Gore's stride again. But his crew of researchers, speechwriters, and advisers, which is skeletal next to Gore's, appears to have left little unmined as it digs for ways to get tough on the vice president.
When Bradley took the offensive in New Hampshire, after months of absorbing criticism without rebuttal, he challenged Gore's honesty and integrity and blasted his past opposition to federally funded abortions. Last week, Bradley chided Gore as a ''poster child'' for the National Rifle Association for backing NRA initiatives when he served in Congress.
And Bradley continues to criticize Gore's role in the 1996 Democratic fund-raising scandal, arguing that if Democrats find no other reason to dump Gore, they should reject him because the scandal's taint could make him unelectable, Bradley says.
Yet Gore continues to soar in the polls, a phenomenon that Bradley attributed in part to the media's massive coverage of McCain's surging candidacy and their waning interest in the Democratic contest.
Indeed, empty seats have outnumbered occupied ones on Bradley's campaign plane and press bus as he has stumped in New York, Florida, South Carolina, Ohio, Missouri, Washington, and California since the New Hampshire primary.
Even worse for Bradley, surveys show McCain gobbling up support from independents at Bradley's expense. Bradley had banked on independents to register as Democrats to propel him in several key states on March 7 and to bolster his case that he would be more electable than Gore in the general election.
Amid the grim outlook, Bradley met privately with contributors in San Francisco Saturday night and assured them he has a plan to win. Just before the meeting, he attended a youth basketball clinic with several of his former professional basketball colleagues in Oakland.
There, Bradley preached the virtue of resilience. ''The real question is, what do you have to bring you back after you've gone down?'' he said, flanked by past basketball greats Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics and Julius Erving of the Philadelphia 76ers. ''What is it inside you that makes you realize that adversity somehow strengthens you?''
Bradley told the youths, seated before him on a gym floor, that he draws daily on his experiences in basketball to steel him in his presidential campaign. And Russell reminded the crowd that Bradley overcame his limitations to reach the top of his sport, two NBA championships, and a place in the Hall of Fame.
Bradley left the gym with less than a month before March 7 to demonstrate his political resilience.
