Bradley Stumps
Editor's note: Jacob Weisberg has filed from Wednesday
night's debate between Al Gore and Bill Bradley. Click here to read it.
BEDFORD, N.H.--I caught up with Bill Bradley here today, having not seen him
outside of his debates with Al Gore for a couple of months. A couple of things
struck me about his appearance at a New Hampshire forum for candidates known as
a "Politics and Eggs Breakfast" (actually a quiche lunch with a commemorative
wooden egg laid at each place setting as a souvenir).
The first thing I noticed was how much Bradley has improved as a public
speaker. Most of the time, in my experience, Bradley comes across more
eloquently on the printed page that in his own speaking voice, which has all
the effervescence of day-old champagne. Today it seemed just the reverse.
Comments that might read as platitudinous rang with quiet force and sincerity.
Bradley spoke for nearly 45 minutes and held the attention of a large, mostly
conservative audience throughout with a mixture of gentle humor, anecdote, and
explicit policy talk. Of course, Bradley has always been the opposite of Gore
in that he radiates a sense of inner calm and comfort with who he is. What
seemed different today was that he also seemed far more present and charismatic
than usual, as he hopped discursively from observations on globalization to
stories about his childhood in Missouri to jokes about basketball to his
substantive proposal of the day, which was a plan to eliminate $10 billion a
year in corporate tax subsidies.
The other thing that struck me about Bradley's performance was the somewhat
inconsistent quality of what one journalist recently described as his streak of
"civic mysticism." There were points in the speech were I found myself entirely
swept up in Bradley's call to political reengagement. In one particularly
strong riff, Bradley talked about the need to turn globalization and rising
prosperity into a more inclusive "narrative" in which ordinary people can
locate themselves. Another fine bit was the meaty part of his speech in which
Bradley talked about how the growth of the tax loopholes that he is proposing
to eliminate fosters a corrosive distrust of government. Still another was the
part about race, where Bradley quoted Toni Morrison on her vision of a world
"in which race exists but doesn't matter."
But at other times, Bradley's soul-stirring rhetoric sounds pretty much like
hooey, as when he answered critics of his proposals to end child poverty and
extend health insurance to all by repeating the mantra that "in a world of new
possibilities guided by goodness, we can." Beware of policy proposals that
include a change in human nature as one of their essential requirements. There
was more of this kind of thing in yesterday's address on "America in the New
Millennium," which I read but did not hear him deliver. "Some people say we
can never achieve our special destiny," Bradley concluded. "But I say, in a
world of new possibilities, guided by goodness, we can and we will."
At the press conference, following this morning's speech, I couldn't resist
asking Bradley what that was supposed to mean. What is our "special destiny"
and who are the people who say we can never achieve it? Bradley actually filled
out the cliché rather convincingly. "I think that our special destiny is to
lead the world by the power of our example as a pluralistic democracy and a
growing economy and to do so in a way that is consistent with the promise of
the Declaration," he said. And who disagrees with that view? "People who get
caught up in the current moment and don't have a longer view of our history and
our potential," Bradley said. "I could put a number of the Republicans in
there, but I decided not to do that."
As I mentioned, Bradley's serious policy proposal of the day was to save $10
billion a year and $125 billion over the next decade by cutting corporate tax
subsidies and cracking down on tax shelters. This is a perfectly reasonable
idea, but it is undermined by two big flaws. Flaw No. 1 is that Bradley wants
to crack down on tax subsidies for mining, oil, gas, and grazing, but leaves
ethanol untouched. The reason is obvious--he's running in the Iowa caucuses on
Jan. 24. But the inconsistency glares. By proposing to cut off tax subsidies
only in states that don't have early primaries, Bradley has actually undermined
his case for cutting any subsidies at all. Bradley's new pro-ethanol position
means that instead of ending tax favoritism, he is merely trimming it in
politically convenient places.
In answering a question about this, Bradley seemed to leave the door open to
changing his mind on ethanol for a second time, when he finished his answer by
saying, "There are many other things in the tax code that I might be
revisiting, so you don't know." But asked to clarify his position on the
matter, Bradley said he would not "revisit" the tax subsidy for ethanol.
Flaw No. 2 is that Bradley's loophole closing isn't politically astute
enough--in a way that the tax reform he accomplished in 1986 was. Tax reform in
the 1980s was a grand bargain--it eliminated tax favoritism for some in
exchange for lowering tax rates for all. Bradley's latest proposal holds no
such broad-based appeal. To cut tax subsidies without reducing rates is a tax
increase. However defensible as a way to increase federal revenues, it has no
prayer of Republican support.
To my mind, this insufficient idea only raises the question of why Bradley
hasn't yet come up with a more ambitious tax-reform proposal. An offer to do
what he did in 1986 once again would command widespread support. It would shift
the debate with Al Gore to a subject Bradley talks about with total confidence
and authority. And it would provide Bradley, should he win the nomination, with
an answer to the non-reformist tax-cut plans emanating from the Republican
side. Perhaps tax reform doesn't appeal to the new spiritualized side of
Bradley. It's just good government without any civic mysticism in it at
all.
