uffy TV ads promoting Vice President Al Gore will deservedly cost him at least a couple of bad press days. The ads represent a retreat from an offer he made in March to bar the use of soft money by the Democratic National Committee in the presidential campaign unless the Republicans went first.
The fact that Gore is going forward with the ad campaign anyway demonstrates how badly the system is broken - how essentially corrupt it is.
Three months ago, after the two other leading candidates, John McCain and Bill Bradley, made campaign finance reform a core initiative, Gore attempted to stake a claim to the issue by challenging Texas Governor George W. Bush as follows: ''I challenge you to accept my proposal that we both reject the use of soft money to run issue ads. I will take the first step by requesting the Democratic National Committee not to run any issue ads paid for by soft money unless and until the Republican Party'' does.
Now Gore's supporters are equivocating, saying that Gore made a challenge, not a pledge, and it became void when Bush failed to agree. Further, they say, while the Republican National Committee has not aired any ads, independent groups supporting Bush, also using unregulated contributions, have.
Neither argument changes the fact that Gore has taken one more step in turning an issue that should be a political plus - since his policy position aligns well with public opinion - into a liability. Given the fund-raising phone calls from the White House, the Buddhist Temple fund-raiser, and new criticism from the FBI, Gore should be marrying reform.
In addition, Gore is already under fire for waffling on some other issues.
There has obviously been a judgment in the Gore camp that the flattering ads will more than compensate for the political price of changing positions and using soft money. But the ads themselves - promoting Gore in key electoral states - make a mockery of the notion that they are intended as ''party building,'' the loophole by which the toothless Federal Election Commission allows this outrage.
