OHNSTON, Iowa - With his campaign stalled in the countdown to the crucial Iowa caucuses, Bill Bradley yesterday summoned a top ally who tore the friendly face off the Bradley campaign and launched a scathing attack against Vice President Al Gore.
In one of the fiercest intraparty assaults of the Democratic primary, Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey blasted Gore's role in some of the greatest failures and controversies of the Clinton adminstration, from the health-care debacle of 1993 to the fund-raising abuses of the 1996 presidential election.
Kerrey noted that Gore has criticized Bradley as ''being corrupted'' by the pharmaceutical industry, the largest employer in New Jersey, while Bradley was the senator from New Jersey for 18 years.
''On the subject of corruption, who was corrupted in '95 and '96 by the desire to raise money by inviting foreign nationals to contribute in an illegal fashion, inviting agents of governments into the White House for coffees, leaving the impression that national security wasn't as important as soft-money targets?'' Kerrey said of the Clinton-Gore administration.
''There is a willingness in this campaign of the vice president to say whatever it takes to score political points and try to hold what obviously has been given to them, and that's a substantial incumbent lead,'' Kerrey said. ''And that bothers me.''
The Gore campaign said the comments reflected badly on Bradley. ''This is just the latest example of the Bradley campaign waging a negative, slash-and-burn attack campaign against Al Gore,'' said Chris Lehane, Gore's spokesman. ''Senator Bradley began this campaign as the purported philosopher king, but he's quickly'' deteriorating ''into the king of negativity.''
Kerrey made the unsolicited remarks to reporters on Bradley's campaign bus before he introduced Bradley for a speech at a high school in an upscale suburb of Des Moines.
Bradley used the forum to sharpen slightly his criticism of Gore for failing to embrace Bradley's self-described ''big and bold ideas.'' But Bradley, who has been stymied in trying to slice Gore's 20-point lead in the Iowa polls, continued to resist appeals from many supporters to go after Gore more aggressively.
He left the infighting to Kerrey, one of three US senators who have endorsed Bradley. And Kerrey, who has not shied in the past from criticizing Clinton, went after Gore with similar zest. He noted that Gore has lambasted Bradley for being a ''quitter'' because he left the Senate in 1994 rather than stay and fight for Democratic priorities.
''Please don't tell me I ought to give you a round of applause for sticking around and fighting Newt Gingrich,'' Kerrey said of Gore. Gingrich is the former House speaker who rose to power in the Republican revolution of 1994.
Kerrey blamed Clinton and Gore for letting Republicans seize control of Congress that year. ''You brought us Newt Gingrich,'' Kerrey said. ''That would be like asking me to thank the arsonist after he sets a house on fire and sticks around to help us put out the blaze.''
He continued: ''I would ask the vice president, does the word `triangulation' ring a bell? Does the name Dick Morris mean anything to you? Because when it was your turn to try to figure out how to save your own rear ends, the ends justified any means.''
Kerrey was referring to the ''triangulation'' strategy conceived by Morris, a White House consultant, that called in part for marginalizing Democrats in Congress.
One of Bradley's last chances to gain ground in Iowa comes in a debate Monday in Des Moines on minority issues. Bradley has recruited several fellow basketball Hall of Famers to attend the debate, including Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics and Willis Reed of the New York Knicks.
