Feature

Song And Dance

The day after the New Hampshire primary, Bradley spoke at the Judson Memorial Church, on Washington Square Park. He was fresh off his decent finish in New Hampshire -- truth be told, coming within five points wasn't all that great; it seemed better because the networks didn't call it until nearly three hours after the polls closed, which gave the numbers a touch of drama they didn't quite earn. But it kept him alive, and it jazzed the crowd, which was huge. Ed Koch spoke, and he was great. Awfully impressive set of lungs for 75. He makes everyone raise their right hand, swear they'll "rush to the polls on March 7 and bring ten friends" to vote for Bradley.

Bradley himself has this unfortunate habit of going on about fifteen minutes longer than he ought to. Twenty minutes in, he's got 'em. He's talking about being on the Senate Finance Committee and seeing the hallway packed with lobbyists when the committee is writing the tax bill. He imitates a lobbyist calling a client, crouching and whispering: "Mr. Jones! Mr. Jones, I got your loophole through! You don't have to pay any taxes!" Then, three weeks later, the committee holds a hearing on child poverty, and of course, the only thing in the hall is dust. I've heard the speech more than a dozen times by now, and this is always the part that really sinks in.

Then he goes on for another ten, fifteen minutes; the rhetoric, about the "innate goodness of the American people" and "the untapped potential of the presidency," starts to go a little soupy. Imagine going to see Springsteen, watching him ripsnort his way through his five greatest hits, you think the show's ending, and then he decides to do side two of Nebraska. And why, in Greenwich Village of all places, doesn't he mention that he wants to protect sexual orientation under civil-rights law? "Well, maybe . . . Yeah. Fair point," says one supporter.

It's after this that I'm scheduled to ride with the candidate from the Village up to the Sheraton. Riding with a candidate is always complicated business, because you kind of don't want to let other reporters know you're doing it, but then you kind of do, because, after all, they aren't. And, as ever, this process involves lots of standing around and doing nothing. It turns out that after the event, Bradley went down to the church basement to give a speech that was being fed live to supporters gathered in hotel ballrooms around California and other March 7 states. Upstairs, press secretary Eric Hauser was holding a press conference with about ten reporters, straining to be heard above the clamor of metal chairs being folded up and carted off.

Finally, an hour and a half after the event ends, we climb in the van. Bradley, Ernestine, a couple of aides. I know writers almost always say this about politicians, but up close . . . you know. He's a nice guy. He's no different, really, than he is in public -- he does not, in other words, gush warmth. But he's friendly enough, and he actually asks me a couple of questions about me, which I take as a sign of decency not only in politicians but in people generally. Of course we talk about New Hampshire and what it means and how he plans to proceed from here and so forth; then we get into the West Thirties, and even though we're going up Tenth, we're close enough to the Garden that I figure I can work it in. I tell him about taking a train to New York one night in 1966, alighting at Penn Station just after a Knicks game had ended, and winding up with his autograph. Window to the old days jimmied open, I ask about them.

"I lived at Eighth and 52nd," he says. "Well, my first year I lived on 57th between Eighth and Ninth, and then we moved a couple of blocks down to Eighth Avenue -- 888 Eighth Avenue. I took a taxi to the games. It became a ritual. My wife always used to joke that I was this great athlete but I'd take a taxi five blocks." (She chimes in: "Five blocks? Half a block!") They went to Gallagher's, and a place on 51st called Cheshire Cheese.

I hope, I'm thinking, that this New York that he clearly loves doesn't end up finishing him off. "Hope springs eternal," Koch told me last week, suggesting that Bradley's last best hope is a series of Perot-style infomercials. Bradley may win some states on March 7, in New England, but, unless lightning strikes, not New York, certainly not California. The better candidate, technically speaking, will have won. But in victory, Gore ought to note the millions who went with the other guy. In November, ideas will matter again, and Bradley has some good ones.