BALTIMORE -- Presidential candidate Bill Bradley charged today that Vice President Al Gore is trying to split the Democratic party for political gain while misrepresenting Bradley's positions on health care reform and Social Security.

"I think we've reached a sad day in our political life in this country when the sitting vice president distorts a fellow Democrats record because he thinks he can score a few political points," Bradley said to applause at a conference of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators.

"Why is one Democrat attacking another Democrat on one of our party's articles of faith (Social Security)? We're all in agreement. So why are you trying to divide us? Why are you trying to pit one group against another?"

Bradley's comments underscored the increasingly contentious nature of fight between the former New Jersey senator and the vice president for the Democratic nomination in 2000.

So far, reforming America's health care system and Social Security have played out as the main battleground between the candidates.

Gore told the black lawmakers group a day earlier that Bradley's call to replace Medicaid with a private insurance system would prove too costly for the nation and would jeopardize health coverage for the poor minorities and disabled people who now depend on Medicaid. Gore also said that Bradley defended radical changes to Social Security such as cutting benefits and raising taxes.

"I heard he gave a pretty good speech but I'm afraid he didn't tell you my whole truth, the whole truth about my record or even half of it," Bradley said. "He said that I proposed raising the eligibility (age) for Social Security. Not true. He knows it's not true.

"He suggested I'd cut Social Security benefits and increase Social Security taxes -- not true. He know it's not true."

Gore had been picking up on remarks Bradley gave during a televised forum Monday night in New Hampshire. There, Bradley had argued that, in order to secure the retirement program's solvency for the next 75 years, Democrats and Republicans would have to put politics aside and pick among hard choices, including a reduction in benefits or an increase in taxes.

Bradley, a former New Jersey senator, has called racial unity "the defining moral issue of our time" and set the pursuit of social integration at the top of his campaign agenda.

He has spiced his speeches to blacks with personal stories of how race has molded his careers in public service and as a New York Knicks basketball player.

But despite the focus, an Associated Press poll shows him trailing Gore among blacks.

Gore was favored by 57 percent of black respondents who said they were Democrats or leaning Democratic, while Bradley was the choice of 24 percent in the telephone poll of 1,023 people. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.