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To a question on what can be done to avoid future school shootings, both Gore and Bradley talked about gun control, family-friendly policies to allow for better parenting and the need for the media to show restraint.

Gore added that he wasn't "sure that particular release [of the Columbine video tapes] was handled well because I don't think it was sensitive to the families out there. Not to blame popular culture," Gore said, "but some kids are vulnerable to seeds planted that bear bitter fruit."

When pressed by Koppel, however, neither candidate proposed attacking the nefarious media executives with more than just some stern language.

Another questioner wondered what the candidates thought of when they heard other politicians speak of this election as a "battle for the American soul." Both men took a moment to wander down philosophical paths, though both brought the point to issues their campaigns have addressed -- Gore focused on school violence, while Bradley focused on racial reconciliation and having those "with deeper resources turn their eyes toward those who don't."

But the loftiness couldn't last forever, not with Gore on the stage. And not after Koppel told the two that they should feel free to question each other. After Gore took another swipe at Bradley's health-care plan, questioning how he would pay to shore up Medicare, Bradley did something he hasn't done much of during this campaign -- he went on the offensive. If Bradley's plan was too bold, he was going to challenge Gore's for not being bold enough.

"The main difference between our programs is I do provide access to affordable quality health care for all Americans," Bradley said. "And his plan does not. So my question to you is, Who will you leave out? Will you leave out the part-time worker that doesn't have health insurance? Will you leave out the downsized middle-class industrial worker who loses health insurance? Will you leave out the 40 percent of the people who live in poverty who don't have health insurance?"

"OK, I'll answer the question," Gore said, "the answer's very simple: I won't leave out anyone."

The two continued bickering, interrupting each other until Koppel again stepped in. "I just want to point out that neither of you answered the question," he pointed out. Even the normally unflappable Ted Koppel was letting the tension eat into his psyche.

The awkward conflict reared its head a couple of other times, with neither man really getting an answer to his opponent's question. Other topics were raised: terrorism (both heroically opposed it), a call to pledge to land a man on Mars by 2010 (both declined), gay and lesbian rights (both supported) and one from Koppel about an ad in the newspaper in which a photo of high school science scholars contained not one African-American or Latino face. To this, each affirmed his commitment to civil rights and affirmative action, while Gore bemoaned the fact that there was only one African-American in the audience.

("That's because we're in New Hampshire, you asshole," one jaded member of the press corps cried.)

Possibly the most insightful responses -- at least in terms of personality -- came with a question about how each felt about Gov. George W. Bush's affirmation of his love for Jesus at the GOP debate on Monday. Bradley said that "a person's religious faith is the deepest and most intimate aspect of their lives," and while he respects "open expressions of faith, in my own case I've decided that that personal faith is private."

Gore took the moment to run all over the religious map -- affirming the separation of church and state, his own belief, the importance of fighting for the rights of religious minorities, rounding it all up with a firm grab for the atheist vote.

Precisely 90 minutes and maybe 15 commercials after the clock began, Koppel brought it all home for the good people in the television viewing audience.

"I think the differences that we've heard between you this evening are less significant perhaps -- or seem less significant to me as a listener -- than perhaps they are to you as candidates."

But there were two other events that seemed instructive, though neither one was on camera. At a mall in Nashua this morning, Bradley and his wife were scheduled for a walk-through, to meet and greet Granite staters.

As soon as the Bradleys walked in, however, they were ambushed by a dozen or so adolescent Gore supporters, who chanted "Al Gore! Al Gore! Al Gore!" obnoxiously, as if the name itself were an insult. Bradley seemed unfazed, but mall security told the pugnacious teenyboppers to chill.

Ernestine Bradley is much more charismatic on the stump than her terse hubby. Bradley was typically mellow as he careened past the Metabolife booth and Perfumania while Ernestine bubbled to voters, "Hi! You going to vote? I hope so. I hope you vote for the right guy! I'm the wife."

Bradley again seemed beleaguered as he constantly had to stop and search behind him for Ernestine. About the fifth time he did this, Bradley slipped and called her a name none of us had ever heard before.

"Wuschel!" he said. She ran up to him.

The media was abuzz. What did he call her? Bushel?

I approached Bradley staffers and asked them, but they were mum. "Why are you stonewalling?" I joked. "What's this nickname? What's with nickname-gate?"

Finally, I approached the man.

"What did you call your wife before?" I asked. "Wushah?"

He smiled slyly. We'd caught him. He'd slipped.

"Wuschel," he said, spelling it for me after I asked.

"What does it mean?"

"It means her," he said, pointing at Ernestine. "It's a variation on a nickname she had when she was young." For a moment, the distant, remote Bill Bradley seemed completely human.

"Somebody caught him in a moment in which he forgot himself and he called me by my nickname," she smiled.

The second revealing moment came later that night, when I was instructed by the Gore campaign to take a cab to the airport so I could catch a flight back to D.C. with the veep and his traveling press corps. But by the time I got to the tarmac, Air Force Two was long gone. Stood up by the vice president, without so much as a phone call!

"This guy [Gore] is rude," said Bradley supporter John Rauh, the New Hampshire Democratic Party's 1992 Senate nominee, after the debate. "It ain't gonna sell. And he ain't gonna be president of the United States."
salon.com | Dec. 18, 1999

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