EST ORANGE, N.J. - Winless from the start, Bill Bradley yesterday abandoned his renegade race for the White House and vowed to support Vice President Al Gore even as he rapped the Gore campaign's ''distortions and negativity.''
Bradley, buried by the Democratic establishment in 19 consecutive states as he tried to topple the incumbent vice president, called Gore to pledge his backing before he urged several hundred supporters near his New Jersey headquarters to rally behind the prospective Democratic nominee.
''It is the tradition of the Democratic Party to fight hard during primaries and then unify and close ranks behind the nominee as soon as the people have spoken,'' Bradley said. ''Now it is time for unity.''
But Bradley, who failed to galvanize voters behind his call for a ''new politics'' of high ideals and civility, made no secret of his disdain for Gore's harsh campaign tactics. Bradley was hurt badly by his unwillingness to match Gore's brawling style, even after Gore ran television ads in Iowa that misrepresented Bradley's position on disaster relief for the state's farmers.
''I thought there were distortions and negativity,'' Bradley said of Gore's campaign in a news conference after his speech. ''And I hope that he'll run a better campaign in the general election.''
Bradley, who would not elaborate on how actively he intends to support Gore, said he will continue to ''say what I feel'' about Gore's campaign against him.
Moreover, Bradley made no effort to back away from his criticism of Gore's role in the 1996 fund-raising scandals. Republicans are expected to hammer Gore over the scandals, particularly his appearance at a fund-raising event at a Buddhist temple and his assertion that ''no controlling legal authority'' prohibited him from soliciting contributions by telephone from the White House.
Though Bradley said Gore appeared to be moving toward trying to blunt any backlash, he added, ''I think he needs to do it more.''
Bradley would not discuss the tone or content of his conversation with Gore, though he did say he had no interest in joining the ticket as a candidate for vice president. Nor was there any indication that Gore would offer Bradley the slot.
Gore, who overcame an early scare from Bradley to prevail in the primaries, described Bradley in a written statement ''as a good man whom I respect.''
''I am honored to have his support,'' Gore said. ''He ran a campaign based on the highest ideals. This primary has been good for the Democratic Party and good for the nation.''
President Clinton, who helped Gore use the power of the White House to stymie Bradley, also praised the former US senator and basketball star for the tone of his campaign.
''If you looked at the issues he raised and the way in which he raised them,'' Clinton told reporters, ''it recalled again how much more substance in my judgment the debate was on the Democratic side, on the issues, and how much more agreement there was.''
As Bradley exited the national stage, he expressed little enthusiasm for publicly analyzing his campaign's demise, though he attributed his defeat in part to Gore's command of the party's ''entrenched power.'' He also cited his own inability to spark enthusiasm for his calls to overhaul the health care system, eradicate child poverty, and curb gun violence.
''I think that we didn't really get across the extent to which this was not a campaign of self-interest,'' he said, but rather a populist push for ''a new politics.''
''Maybe we could have done a better job of getting across that aspect of it,'' he said. ''I think that might have been where we had our deepest failure.''
His top aides cited several other factors, most notably Bradley's inability to break through the massive attention the Republican primary received after Arizona Senator John McCain's decisive victory in New Hampshire.
Bradley's national chairman, Doug Berman, blamed New Hampshire for moving its primary to Feb. 1 from Feb. 29, leaving the Democrats without a contest for five weeks until March 7. During that period, the Republicans held several high-profile contests that commanded the news media's attention.
In bowing out, Bradley would not say whether he would again seek the presidency, a job that others had wished on him since he was a teenager. But he invoked President Lincoln in vowing to pursue his vision of a ''new politics.''
Citing Lincoln's contention that ''the cause of liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one or even one hundred defeats,'' Bradley ended his speech by saying, ''The cause of trying to create a new politics in this country, the cause of trying to fulfill our special promise as a nation, that cannot be defeated by one or a hundred defeats.''
However, he asserted that his withdrawal from the race on the same day that McCain suspended his campaign in the Republican primary probably signaled the death of any chance to overhaul the campaign finance system this year. Both men had led the charge to reduce the influence of money in politics.
Meanwhile, Bradley said he would not release the 412 convention delegates he had won because ''they've been loyal supporters and deserve to have their voices heard.''
