ANCHESTER, N.H. - Bill Bradley last night abruptly abandoned his gentlemanly campaign for the White House, thrusting Vice President Al Gore on the defensive with a prolonged attack on Gore's tactics, honesty, and political integrity.
After weeks of sidestepping a fight with Gore, Bradley seized the last debate before Tuesday's New Hampshire primary as a battleground to challenge the vice president for purportedly distorting Bradley's record and engaging in the brand of politics practiced by Richard M. Nixon.
The debate took place as the latest polls showed Gore protecting a slight lead over Bradley in a state where Bradley had enjoyed an edge since December and badly needs to post a strong showing.
''Why should we believe that you will tell the truth as president if you don't tell the truth as a candidate?'' Bradley asked Gore.
Gore asked back: ''That's not a negative attack?''
As Bradley repeatedly forced Gore to defend himself, the vice president denied lying or engaging in dirty politics. And Gore said Bradley's attacks cheapened his challenger's effort to present himself as a proponent of cleaner elections.
''If you want to talk about a higher standard,'' Gore said, ''you need to live by it.''
The debate was the seventh between Bradley and Gore, and was the last chance for New Hampshire voters to hear the unfiltered views of the candidates before they cast their ballots.
Bradley took the offensive after some of his advisers and supporters had clamored for weeks for him to demonstrate to voters that he is a fighter. Though Gore's aides anticipated the attack, they expressed a measure of surprise at the ferocity of Bradley's effort.
Yet it remains to be seen whether voters will embrace Bradley's new strategy or Gore will succeed in portraying him as just another candidate engaged in the give-and-take of conventional politics.
They sparred at times over policy, but the debate was dominated by the barbs over campaign ethics.
Bradley's attack on Gore was supported in part by a debate moderator, CNN's Judy Woodruff, who began the forum by saying that Gore had repeatedly distorted Bradley's record and health-care proposal. And Bradley soon exploited the opportunity by likening Gore to Nixon.
''When Al accuses me of negative campaigning, he reminds of Richard Nixon,'' Bradley said. ''He would chop down a tree, stand on a stump, and give a speech about conservation.''
Gore said, ''There has never been a time in this campaign that I said something that I knew to be untrue. There is nothing I've said in this campaign that is untrue.'' He accused Bradley of ''wanting to shoot the messenger.''
But Bradley wasn't done. He accused Gore of playing ''politics as usual,'' offering ''a thousand promises and a thousand attacks ... attack, attack, attack every day.''
Gore shot back: ''I didn't wait until I ran for president to speak up for campaign finance reform.''
Bradley later chastised Gore for making statements for which he should know better. ''I wonder if you're running a campaign that says untrue things,'' Bradley said. ''I wonder if you can be a president that gets people's trust.''
Gore called that ''a negative personal attack.'' He made the same complaint after Bradley, citing a Globe story on Gore's ties to influential lobbyists, asked, ''How can you be fighting for the people when you're working hand-in-glove with the special interests who essentially are fighting against the people?''
Gore replied: ''If that's not negative, I don't what it is ... I have never been afraid to stand up to the special interests.''
And he said said Bradley should stick to the substance of their disagreements without negative personal attacks. ''People out there are tired of that,'' Gore said.
Amid the joust, Gore criticized Bradley for voting for budget cuts in the 1980s that were seen as hurting the poor and campaigning in 2000 on a promise to help the disadvantaged. ''The way you've been talking,'' Gore said, ''I don't see how you can vote for Ronald Reagan's budget cuts and campaign like Robert Kennedy.''
Bradley's hard feelings toward Gore stem primarily from the vice president's relentless dissection of Bradley's health care proposal over weeks and weeks. Gore has said that by eliminating Medicaid, Bradley would throw out federal nursing home standards. Bradley says that is not true.
Gore has also said that by eliminating Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for the poor and disabled, Bradley would harm African-Americans, Latinos and women, who disproportionately receive those benefits. Bradley has said he is outraged by the accusation.
And Gore has criticized Bradley's plan for replacing Medicaid, saying it is grossly inadequate and describing it as $150-a-month voucher for insurance. In New Hampshire and Iowa, Gore has said repeatedly, there is no federal health plan for that price. Bradley has fumed that Gore is distorting what is a weighted average that could amount to more than $150 in some states and less than $150 in others, not a flat amount.
Following the debate, Bradley defended his decision to go after Gore. He said he hoped there is a reservoir of good will toward him from the voters, and that they will use his information to make their decision. He also said Gore would have to go a long way to prove that he has not lied in this campaign.
''I have tried to be as positive as I can throughout this whole period,'' Bradley told reporters.
One area Bradley has tip-toed around for months has been Gore's record on abortion. Aides have suggested that people look at votes Gore took early in his congressional career, but Bradley was always loath to raise the subject himself.
Last night, Bradley questioned Gore's commitment to protecting a woman's right to an abortion, saying Gore supported the ''right to life position'' 84 percent of the time while in the House of Representatives. He also said Gore had opposed federal funding for abortion, voting 19 times against federal or local funding for abortion in the District of Columbia.
Gore, however, repeatedly told Bradley that he has ''always'' supported the right of women to choose abortion, though he conceded that earlier in his political career he opposed federal funds being used to pay for abortions.
Gore did cast a number of votes against federal funding for abortions. According to a summary of Gore's abortion voting record in a recent biography by Bob Zelnick, Gore, in 1977, his first year in Congress, voted for an amendment offered by Representative Henry Hyde, the Illinois Republican, that banned spending federal funds on abortions unless necessary to save the life of the mother.
