ANCHESTER, N.H. - Bill Bradley's genteel, high-minded campaign of ideas dropped all traces of politeness yesterday in the increasingly bitter battle for the Democratic nomination.
Campaign workers fanned out across the state, handing out mock prescription forms in front of drugstores. The disease? ''Gore-itis.'' The symptoms? ''Uncontrollable lying.''
The campaign leaflet prescribed a lifetime supply of truth serum for Vice President Al Gore. And the directions said Gore should ''take a healthy dose daily, especially when talking about the Bill Bradley health plan.'' Failure to do so would result in ''uncontrollable negative campaigning, lack of respect for the voters of New Hampshire and further abandonment of the principle of health care for all.''
The counterattack came 24 hours after senior citizens stood outside drug stores in 11 towns throughout the state, passing out glossy mailers declaring that Gore would provide a prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients and that he would fight drug companies to get lower-priced prescription drugs on the market more quickly. They also passed out a separate flier that provided a side-by-side comparison of Gore and Bradley's records on regulation of drug companies.
The Bradley campaign has become increasingly frustrated in recent weeks watching Gore pick apart Bradley's health care plan. The vice president has alleged, in various settings, that the Bradley proposal would destroy Medicaid, endanger health care for African-Americans and people who suffer from the HIV virus, and put the elderly at risk by eliminating all nursing home standards.
While Bradley's plan would eliminate Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and disabled, it would replace it with subsidies for private insurance - subsidies that Gore derides as inadequate. Bradley has angrily rejected the idea that minorities, nursing home residents or those with HIV have anything to fear from his plan. And he regards Gore's rival proposal as ''timid'' and inadequate.
Though the language in Bradley's flier was sharp yesterday - and reminiscent, to some New Hampshire primary veterans, of Bob Dole's 1988 ''stop lying about my record'' rebuke - campaign officials were adamant that some response was needed to the Gore offensive.
''We are not going to be shy in pointing out whenever the vice president and his campaign are distorting our record,'' said Mo Elleithee, Bradley's New Hampshire spokesman.
''I think they went over the top when they started using scare tactics to scare seniors and the disabled and other people into thinking that the Bradley plan would leave them out in the cold when the Gore campaign knows that's not true,'' Elleithee said.
On the surface, the Gore campaign was not amused by the charges of lying.
''We are focusing on legitimate issues and the Bradley campaign is launching negative personal attacks,'' said Douglas Hattaway, Gore's spokesman here.
''We only put out confirmed facts, but unfortunately for Bill Bradley, the facts don't always tell a pretty story,'' Hattaway said. ''The fact is, he was called the drug industry's most effective defender in Congress. The fact is, he sided with the drug companies in an attempt to keep generic drugs off the market for up to 24 years. Al Gore fought the drug companies to provide less expensive generics for consumers.''
In some ways, the sharp exchange was welcomed by Gore, who has been trying to bait Bradley into looking and sounding more like a typical politician. The angry accusations of lying, officials hoped, will knock Bradley off his non-political pedestal.
As for the prescription drug benefit promised by both candidates, Gore says his would cover the first $5,000 in drug costs, reaching 90 percent of all seniors on Medicare with no deductible. Bradley's would require a $500 deductible before the perscription drug coverage begins, with no cap on benefits received. According to a report by the American Association of Retired Persons this week, the typical senior citizen pays $413 out of his pocket for prescription drugs.
