ANCHESTER, N.H. - What do women want? Bill Bradley wants to know.
In the race for the Democratic nomination for president, Bradley lags behind Vice President Al Gore among women voters in New Hampshire, Iowa, and nationally by as many as 15 percentage points, according to numerous polls. And while Gore similarly trails among men, women make up the larger percentage of all voters, and women are more likely to vote.
''It just means that winning the women's vote is going to give you a tremendous advantage,'' said Elizabeth A. Sherman, director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
That may explain why the Bradley campaign assembled an all-women focus group in Londonderry to test out television commercials and themes. It is the reason why Bradley's ads are running during Oprah Winfrey's, Rosie O'Donnell's, and Regis and Kathy Lee's shows, all popular among women viewers.
Mary Anne Mueller, the former deputy corporation counsel for the city of Nashua, was paid $60 to give her opinion on the issues and ads assembled by Bradley's advisers for the focus group. She and many of the other women there said they did not like the former senator's biographical TV spot, which included a Pennsylvania mother named Maureen Drumm, who thanked Bradley for saving her daughter's life.
''There were all these questions and we didn't understand. What was the point of putting her in it?'' Mueller asked. ''How did he save her baby's life?''
Perhaps as a result, the ad, which also featured Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, aired for less than a week before being pulled. In its place came a 60-second spot, solely featuring Drumm talking about Bradley's effort to get insurance companies to allow mothers to stay in hospitals for 48 hours after giving birth. In a partial answer to Mueller's question, Drumm said in the second version that she would never have had a third child if that law had not been passed.
Subject matter, such as hospital care for new mothers, is key to understanding the gender gap. Experts say women are not so much driven by ''women's issues,'' such as abortion, as they are by left-leaning opinions on social policies.
''Women have more liberal policy preferences,'' said Anna Greenberg, a Kennedy School of Government professor who specializes in public opinion, gender, and politics. ''They are more liberal on health care, education, welfare, help for the disadvantaged ... and gun control. Women tend to feel more economically insecure than men and less likely to say the economy is doing well.''
The result is a Democratic duel over health and education that is being played out over the airwaves. Both Bradley and Gore have run television ads that tout their health care plans. And Gore has sought to prevent Bradley from improving his standing among women by continually attacking his health proposal for ''destroying'' Medicaid, undermining Medicare, and hurting African-Americans, Latinos, women, and the disabled, as well as people with the AIDS virus.
''To have a candidate stand up and say, `I'm going to do away with Medicaid' is extremely frightening,'' Sherman said. ''Gore is making hay with it and Bradley's not denying it.''
Bradley has proposed replacing Medicaid with subsidies for people to purchase private health insurance. But Gore has lambasted that approach as grossly inadequate.
In another bid to appeal to women, Bradley held a news conference recently with a group of abortion-rights activists who endorsed his candidacy. Bradley backers have also encouraged people to look at Gore's early congressional voting record before he had embraced a woman's right to an abortion.
On the flip side, Bradley polls extremely well among men. In general, these men are well-educated, older, and earning a sizable income. Mark Longabaugh, Bradley's New Hampshire campaign director, said male voters have followed Bradley's career for years, first watching him as a basketball player for the New York Knicks.
''As women get to know Bill, they'll find him a very, very good spokesman for their concerns,'' Longabaugh said.
Some, however, see Bradley highlighting his basketball career as an annoyance to women voters. A video shown at the Florida Democratic convention in December made liberal use of photographs showing Bradley on the court. And a major fund-raiser at Madison Square Garden featured a multitude of his teammates from the NBA.
''It just isn't a way to appeal to women,'' said Susan Carroll, a senior research associate at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. ''Women look at it and say, `It's just not relevant.'''
According to numbers from the US Census, the opinions of women voters literally count for more than men's.
In 1996, 67 percent of all women eligible to vote registered, compared with 64 percent of all men. Of those registered to vote, 55 percent of women cast a ballot, compared with 53 percent of men. In real numbers, 5 million more women than men voted in the 1996 general election.
But Longabaugh said Bradley is poised to run well in the general election because women are more likely to vote Democratic and men are more likely to vote Republican.
''Bradley runs better against any Republican than Gore,'' Longabaugh said. ''He's much stronger among men.''
A recent Globe/WBZ-TV poll demonstrates Bradley's strength among men compared with Gore's strength among women. While the pair each pulled 44 percent of those surveyed, Bradley's support was made up of 49 percent men and 40 percent women. Gore's support, by contrast, consisted of 40 percent men and 47 percent women.
But before Bradley can take on a Republican, he has to win the Democratic nomination. And Mueller, for one, has questions about his commitment.
''The problem I have is that he resigned from the Senate,'' said Mueller, a Democrat. ''You want someone who cares about women's issues and will fight for women's issues. I don't wan't someone who will resign.''
