AN JOSE, Calif. - Amid the clinking of cocktail glasses and the sparkling crystal chandeliers, Governor Gray Davis hosted Vice President Al Gore last night at a reception that included just about all who matter in California Democratic politics.
With one exception.
Bill Bradley, the former New Jersey senator and presidential hopeful without the governor's backing, was not invited.
Today, another example of the vice president's clout with the party establishment will be on display. As both candidates speak before the state's Democratic Convention here, the hall will be filled with nearly 2,000 sign-waving Gore devotees.
Bradley was given just 200 passes for his followers.
In the vast Golden State, so crucial to the prospects of any presidential candidate, Bradley is facing what may be his toughest test. The vice president has the backing not only of the state's political leaders, but a rejuvenated labor movement, teachers unions, and gay and lesbian organizations. Each of those groups has extensive get-out-the-vote efforts in place to assist Gore in the March 7 primary.
''All the institutional advantages are there, they're in place,'' said Bill Carrick, a Democratic political consultant who is unaligned in the primary.
This is an electorate that tends to swing wildly and swing late. The same vast institutional forces at Gore's behest could trigger a backlash against the candidate Bradley derides as a creature of the political status quo. And then there is the X-factor: inattentiveness. The weather has been gorgeous here this winter, and few voters have holed up inside their homes watching political debates from Iowa and New Hampshire.
''Californians really still haven't given a lot of attention to the race,'' said Kam Kawata, a Democratic political consultant working for US Senator Dianne Feinstein. ''That's good news for Bradley because the contests where he didn't do as well as he wanted were harmful, but not a knockout.''
And while Gore has grabbed almost all of the endorsements to be had here, the early struggles of Governor George W. Bush of Texas are a reminder that voters are not always impressed by Very Important People vouching for candidates.
Nevertheless, a recent Field poll showed Bradley with just 19 percent among his best demographic group - people with college and post-collegiate degrees. Even in liberal San Francisco and high-tech Silicon Valley, he is far, far behind Gore, though he has worked hard in Northern California. The poll gave Gore a 40-point lead over his challenger.
Making matters worse, Bradley has gotten far less media attention in recent days than he needs.
''The McCain campaign has taken the oxygen out of the air for the other independent, reform-insurgent candidate,'' said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at Claremont Graduate University. ''They're both trying to occupy the same ground. Right now, the only one of the two on the radar screen is John McCain.''
Gore's array of organizational backers come with phone banks, direct mail solicitations, and people to go door to door, dropping literature and canvassing.
In San Francisco's gay community, for example, the Alice B. Toklas group, the largest gay and lesbian Democratic club, has endorsed Gore. And the membership has another reason to be fired up as it helps the vice president: It is fighting an anti-gay-marriage initiative on the ballot.
''Gore comes out here very strong, very organized and very well-liked,'' said Robert Barnes, an openly gay Democratic strategist who is helping to derail the so-called Knight ballot initiative.
In fact, California's tradition of controversial propositions has also energized the Latino, African-American, and Asian communities, all of which are behind Gore, according to polls. Referendums to cut off health and education services for illegal immigrants, to prohibit the state from giving preferences based on race, and to move from bilingual education to total English immersion for immigrant children have resulted in a wave of Democratic activism.
The teachers' unions, which have endorsed Gore, are also involved in a fight to make it easier to pass school bond issues. They are spending about $15 million to turn out their 295,000 members and to win support for the initiative.
Besides the California Education Association, the AFL-CIO, the machinists and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, among others, have increased their political activity since former governor Pete Wilson tried to stop the unions' ability to spend dues on political activity. All are backing Gore.
''I don't underestimate the potential of the unions,'' said Gale Kaufman, Bradley's senior California adviser. ''Whether it translates into actual votes is another story.''
Indeed, Kaufman is in charge of organizing the teachers' campaign to pass Proposition 26. And while she says she believes teachers will go to the polls, she also says that many will vote for Bradley while voting yes on the initiative.
''The established support that [Gore] has is not anything we were not expecting,'' Kaufman said. ''What it translates into, about excitement about his candidacy, is still unclear to me.''
Still, Bradley only has a little over three weeks to ingratiate himself with the voters here, with the help of a multimillion-dollar advertising purchase will feature, among others, his hottest new celebrity endorsement: Michael Jordan.
''The gap is so great and the time is so short I just don't know whether it can possibly work,'' said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
