WEB WARS Al Gore's "Bradley Information Bureau" Bill Bradley's "More about Gore" site

WASHINGTON -- Rolling the Internet into an increasingly negative presidential campaign, Democrats Bill Bradley and Al Gore each have crafted Web sites criticizing the other. Bradley is airing radio ads urging voters to check out his "More About Gore" cyber-slam.

The new sites are the latest attack tactics being employed by both Democrats and Republicans as the campaign spreads across the country after a month of focus on just a few early primary states.

On the Republican side, the telephone is the weapon of choice: Sen. John McCain paid for calls branding George W. Bush anti-Catholic, while McCain has endured a phone campaign in Michigan, and now in Virginia, suggesting one of his top supporters is "a vicious bigot."

The Republican race has tightened to one of the closest in memory, and each side is looking for an edge. With a bigger gap on the Democratic side, Gore is looking for a knockout punch while Bradley looks to shake up the race.

The stakes are higher with more than a dozen states up for grabs in the next three weeks.

"It's like a boxing match and people are responding instantly to the jabs and posture of the opponent," said W. Russell Newman, who is monitoring the campaign at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication.

Nowhere is the increasingly bitter tone more apparent than on the Web, where candidate sites until this week had been mostly positive, featuring baby pictures, policy papers and video clips from the road.

On Tuesday, Gore unveiled his negative site -- "the Bradley Information Bureau" -- located at www.algore2000.com. On Wednesday, Bradley put up www.moreaboutgore.com.

The Bradley site features an unflattering picture of Gore and asks in large letters: "Who is the real Al Gore?"

"As a conservative congressman, Al Gore was anti-choice, pro-gun, pro-tobacco and indifferent to education and health care," the site says on its opening page, echoing a theme Bradley began sounding on the stump this week.

A radio ad now airing in Washington state, a prime Bradley target, hits the same the message. "When it comes right down to it, what does Al Gore really stand for?" an announcer asks, suggesting that listeners check out the new Web site "to see for yourself."

By tying the two mediums together, the campaign hopes voters will get more negative information about Gore than they could from a single ad. "You simply can't provide all that information in a 60-second radio ad," Bradley spokeswoman Kristen Ludecke said.

The Gore camp dismisses the Bradley effort as desperate. The New Jersey senator is trailing in the nomination race.

On the Republican side, thousands of phone calls blanketed Michigan and, according to McCain, have now arrived in Virginia, where voters go to the polls next Tuesday.

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, a Bush supporter, recorded a phone call accusing a top McCain official of being "a vicious bigot" who called conservative Christians "anti-abortion zealots, homophobes and would-be censors."

In the calls, Robertson criticizes McCain for refusing to repudiate the statements by the official, former Sen. Warren Rudman of New Hampshire.

Bush says he has had nothing to do with the calls.

For his part, the Texas governor is fuming over calls made by the McCain camp in Michigan that suggested Bush was anti-Catholic.

McCain's spokesman initially denied campaign responsibility for the calls, which were targeted to Catholic voters, but acknowledged it late Tuesday.

The calls told voters: "Governor George Bush has campaigned against Senator John McCain by seeking the support of Southern fundamentalists who have expressed anti-Catholic views," according to a script provided by Bush's camp. The call then noted that Bush spoke at Bob Jones University in South Carolina and the caller said: "Bob Jones has made strong anti-Catholic statements, including calling the pope the antichrist and the Catholic Church a satanic cult."

During a campaign stop Tuesday night, Bush had a Catholic priest standing behind him. And on Wednesday, Bush went after McCain's campaign for first denying the calls.

"I don't accept that kind of campaigning and I don't appreciate it one bit," Bush said.

McCain responded, "That was an accurate phone call. I didn't call anyone a bigot."

The Bush campaign was hoping to capitalize, preparing TV ads criticizing McCain's "Washington-style" attacks, a campaign aide said.

The negativity can backfire. In South Carolina, where McCain pulled an ad comparing Bush to President Clinton, many voters found the attack unfair. In Michigan, where McCain ran no attack ads, more voters found Bush to be unfair.