Gore May Face Contests In Mass., N.H.

By Ann Scales, Globe staff, March 11, 1999

WASHINGTON -- When Vice President Al Gore makes his first official presidential campaign visit to New Hampshire on Monday, he will arrive with a big advantage in Democratic money and support in the state. But despite his appearance as the inevitable nominee, the race may be far from over.

Democratic activists and political analysts interviewed this week said that of all the states where Gore will run against the former New Jersey senator, Bill Bradley, New Hampshire and Massachusetts are likely to be the toughest battlegrounds.

"His biggest challenge is probably that both states like there to be a contest," said Clinton's former labor secretary, Robert B. Reich.

"New Hampshire voters never give anybody a free ride. They want their candidates tested in the battle of primary campaigns," said Reich, an economist at Brandeis University. "Massachusetts is a politically sophisticated state, a liberal state, that will not be taken for granted,"

Gore's visit Monday will mark his 15th trip to New Hampshire since 1994, which is double the number of visits George Bush made to the Granite State as vice president at a similar point in his 1988 campaign for the presidency. Bush had made only seven trips to New Hamsphire by March 1987, and a total of 23 before the state's primary in February 1988, according to trip records provided by his presidential library in College Station, Texas.

After a rally and meeting with Democratic activists in Manchester, Gore will travel to Iowa, where the first presidential caucuses are held, to campaign in Des Moines. He will return to New Hampshire on March 26 to attend three "house parties" over two dayswith small groups of voters, and to address a county Democratic gathering in the eastern part of the state.

Analysts say that among Gore's challenges in New Hampshire is proving that he can do personal politicking just as ably as President Clinton and do it despite his Secret Service protection.

"He knows he can't run for president behind a rope line," said Jeff Woodburn, a Gore backer and former chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.

Woodburn said Gore must also step outside of Clinton's shadow and exert his independence, which Gore advisers suggested won't occur until much later this year. And he will be pressed to take time from his day job to campaign directly against Bradley, whose one-on-one skills off the basketball court have been lauded even by Gore allies, especially in a state with a penchant for hurting the front-runner and propelling the underdog.

"The primary is about 11 months away. Anything can happen between now and then," said Kathy Sullivan, the new chairwoman of the New Hampshire's state Democratic Party. "From what I've seen, the vice president is taking New Hampshire very seriously, and we expect to see a lot more of him."

Massachusetts, where Gore has some connections -- having graduated from Harvard University, while his wife, Tipper, graduated from Boston University -- might also present challenges for Gore, despite his tremendous organizational and fund-raising advantage over Bradley. Bradley has yet to begin organizing in Massachusetts, although his aides say he will soon release the names of some of his supporters.

At the moment, Gore is in the middle of a feud between Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo over alleged discrimination in the city's public housing.

And the Clinton-Gore team's preference for Los Angeles over Boston as the site for the Democratic National Convention in 2000 did not sit well with the mayor. Gore has visited California 53 times since 1993, and he said last week that the nation's largest state deserved more of his attention, a comment that, while arguably true, made even some of his allies cringe.

"Maybe he's just warming up for a general election," Woodburn quipped. "He can do that and just make sure he's in New Hampshire in February."

Apparently seizing an opening, Bradley initiated a meeting a couple of weeks ago with Menino, a conversation that the former senator's communications director, Anita Dunn, described as a get-acquainted session and an exchange of views about issues facing cities.

Menino, through a spokesman, declined to comment for this report.

A Gore spokesman, Chris Lehane, said the flap has not affected the vice president's relationship with Menino or created problems for his campaign in Massachusetts.

"I think we view our relationship with the mayor the same way it has always been, which is a great relationship," Lehane said, after listing various projects that Gore helped steer to Boston, including money for the empowerment zone.

Dunn said Bradley views the Bay State as potentially friendly turf because Clinton and Gore did not have to actively compete there in 1992 when Paul E. Tsongas, the late Massachusetts senator, was a candidate. It was a similar situation in Iowa, she said, where Senator Tom Harkin was running.

"It's a critical state and it's a state where we believe Bill Bradley can do well," Dunn said. "Massachusetts is not a state where Clinton-Gore ever had much of an infrastructure. They didn't contest it in '92, so it's a little bit like Iowa."

But Marc Landy, a political scientist at Boston College, said many local politicians could jump on the Gore bandwagon if he looks like a sure winner. "Many officeholders in Massachusetts really felt in '92 that they were on the sidelines because of the Tsongas campaign," he said.

But Clark Hubbard, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, said Massachusetts, even more than the Granite State, might prove an interesting matchup between Gore and Bradley.

"Bradley's particular brand of politics, that kind of intellectual approach to policy liberalism is the kind that plays well in Massachusetts," he said. Hubbard added that former governor William F. Weld "is a Republican example of that kind of approach, and I think Bradley could make a stronger run against Gore in Massachusetts than he can in New Hampshire."

Woodburn said Gore could be helped in New Hampshire by the state's open primary laws that enable Democrats to vote in the Republican primary, which may have as many as 11 candidates.

"A smaller turnout is going to help the better organized, incumbent candidate," Woodburn said. Even so, he added, "The race is going to tighten, and it's going to be a fight and Al Gore is going to win."

Reich said Gore's "biggest danger is keeping his candidacy fresh and interesting. The American public bores quickly."