ASHINGTON - Former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, who has raised $11.7 million in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, yesterday called big money in politics ''a great stone wall'' between Americans and their elected officials, and he challenged both national parties to ban unlimited ''soft money'' donations and spending in the 2000 race.
`Before the money machines start humming,'' he said in a speech at the National Press Club, ''let's pause and think of a better way.''
Bradley's reform proposal, the most comprehensive offered so far by a presidential candidate, also called for public financing of congressional elections, free broadcast time for federal candidates, and same-day voter registration. It was immediately rejected by the chairmen of both the Republican National Committee and Vice President Al Gore's 2000 campaign.
''When it comes to campaign finance, Bill Bradley's approach is `do as I say, not as I do,''' said GOP chairman Jim Nicholson. ''Bill Bradley can try to present himself as a reformer today, but as a senator he never set a reformist example. He always milked the system for all he could get.''
Tony Coehlo, Gore's campaign chairman, noted that Bradley had accepted Democratic Party money in the past. ''Now he would leave the party and every Democratic candidate ... to fend for themselves while George W. Bush and the Republican money machine try to buy the election,'' Coehlo said in a statement.
Those reactions seemed tailor-made for Bradley's outsider campaign. Despite his 18 years in the Senate, Bradley is running as the anti-establishment candidate in the Democratic race. And although he has raised the largest chunks of his 2000 campaign money from lawyers, brokers, and bankers, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, Bradley is casting himself as the champion of middle-class America and contrasting his fund-raising with Bush's pursuit of special-interest money.
''Nothing breaks down trust in democracy as powerfully and surely as money,'' Bradley said. ''It is like a great stone wall that comes between the people and their representatives. A great wall that prevents each from hearing the other. A great wall that muffles the sounds of the people.''
Fred Wertheimer, a campaign-finance watchdog, said Bradley's speech was important for its specific proposals, which Wertheimer endorsed, and because it put a money-and-politics debate on the agenda of the presidential campaign. He said, adding a reference to the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain: ''Both Bradley and John McCain are making money a symbol of what is wrong with the system and what that means for our democracy.''
Like the Senate bill sponsored by McCain and Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, Bradley's plan would bar national parties from collecting soft money and ban state parties from spending it in federal elections. Because these donations are unlimited, unregulated, and have been a big influence in recent elections, soft money has become the prime target of those who want to overhaul the campaign funding system.
Bradley yesterday accused Bush and Gore of hypocrisy on the soft-money issue because, he said, both have called for changing the system yet they have ''directed their top fund-raisers to begin raising soft money for the general election.''
''That is just not true,'' said Marla Romash, a Gore spokeswoman. She said Bradley is the hypocrite because as a senator, he did not propose to change the financing system, and as a presidential candidate, the average contribution to his campaign is a not-so-small $600.
''Bradley's words have not been matched by his actions,'' said Romash, who provided a four-page report on how he ''has benefited and exploited the system he now condemns.''
Gore and Bradley are locked in a major money race. Federal Election Commission reports show that as of June 30, Gore had raised $19.5 million, compared to Bradley's $11.7 million. Neither, however, was close to Bush, the overall money leader with $37.3 million.
Bradley praised the states, including Massachusetts and Maine, that provide voluntary public financing of elections, calling it an ''elegant, principled idea.'' As president, Bradley said he would propose that federal candidates who agree to limit their campaign expenditures be eligible for matching funds in primaries and public financing of general elections, in addition to free air time on television.
Bradley said advance voter registration is ''the last barrier in the long row of barriers blocking full participation.'' If president, he would propose that any citizen with proper identification be allowed to vote on Election Day, and that all employers give workers a minimum of two hours off to vote.
