In the first head-to-head meeting of what looks to be a tight primary campaign between Vice President Al Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley, style, not substance, appeared to be the difference between two men who often seem indistinguishable on issues of policy.
In a town meeting-style forum in the College's Moore Theater, health care and campaign finance reform dominated discussion as the candidates engaged in largely unsuccessful attempts to delineate clear policy differences.
But while the two Democrats failed to distance themselves politically, their personalities appeared more divergent than most expected. Although both candidates have previously been characterized as unemotional, staid speakers, audiences last night saw a far more aggressive, jovial vice president.
Even before the CNN and WMUR cameras started rolling on the audience of 500 Upper Valley and College community members chosen by lottery to attend the forum, differences in personality between the two men were apparent.
Gore challenged audience members to ask questions before the town hall forum officially began and answered additional questions for 90 minutes after the forum ended.
Once the forum officially began, the vice president asked audience members about their families and cracked jokes in clear attempts to look more spontaneous and at ease than Bradley.
Gore's elaborate, pre-broadcast greeting of Bradley's wife Ernestine led Bradley to blow Tipper Gore a kiss, eliciting an outburst of laughter from the audience.
Clad in a tan suit and cowboy boots, Gore continued to cultivate the image of a relaxed outsider working from his new headquarters in Tennessee.
The candidates presented similar stances on issues, with both saying their administrations would work for campaign finance reform, bipartisan cooperation in Congress, safer, better schools and environmental protection.
Health care reform was the one issue that brought the night's most direct clash. With the two candidates offering competing plans for health care coverage, the question of how much the government can afford to pay emerged as a potential battleground for future debates.
Gore -- whose health care plan would cover 90 percent of Americans -- said Bradley's 100 percent coverage package would cost in the trillions of dollars and exhaust the budget surplus.
The former Senator argued his plan instead of the billions of dollars Bradley estimates his plan will cost.
Bradley remarked that both campaigns have experts to evaluate financial costs, and argued his plan would instead cost billions of dollars -- a figure which could be absorbed by the budget surplus and technological advances.
When the content of their messages seemed strikingly similar, their rhetorical style still served to separate the two. While Bradley offered broader meditations on the meaning of the American dream, leadership and his time out of elected office, Gore's answers were more specific and policy-based.
The issue of gay rights led to a Bradley answer that even his opponent praised as eloquent.
Bradley said he supports gays being allowed to serve openly in the military -- as gays serve well in a myriad of occupations -- and he is against discrimination on any grounds.
"If a gay American can serve openly in the White House, in the Congress, in the courts, in the Treasury Department and in the attorney general's office, why can't they serve openly in the U.S. military? It doesn't make sense."
Gore said he supports legal protection for same sex couples, but not the sacramental recognition of marriage. However, Gore said he favors "protecting the institution of marriage as it has been understood between a man and a woman."
Bradley drew applause with his passionate pledge to improve urban public schools by whatever means necessary.
"When FDR was president of the United States and we were in a depression, he said 'I'm going to try this, I'm going to try that, I'm going to try something else. But we are going to get out of this depression,'" Bradley said. "And I say to the American people that if I'm president of the United States, when it comes to urban public education, we're going to try this, we're going to try that, we're going to experiment here, experiment there. But we are going to improve urban public education."
Campaign finance reform, which both men promised to implement, is needed from a grassroots level, Bradley said.
"From my perspective, there is no issue that is so linked to other issues as campaign finance reform," Bradley said. "That's why it is an imperative."
Bradley pointed to that very issue in explaining why he quit the Senate in 1996, a decision many commentators have thought would be a stumbling block for his presidential campaign. Gore has publicly criticized Bradley's decision to leave the party in a time when the Republicans controlled the Senate.
Bradley said he left Washington to "have a dialogue with the American people." He cited working on campaign finance reform at a grass-roots level, teaching at Stanford University and the University of Notre Dame, studying technological changes in the economy and delving into the issue of American race relations.
The years out of elected office prepared Bradley to run for president, he said.
"If you're going to do this, you ought to deal with big problems and you ought to have big solutions to have big problems."
When asked, the former senator declined to discuss the controversy surrounding 1996 Clinton-Gore fundraising efforts, but said there were "obvious irregularities."
Gore was quick to criticize his predecessor in his answer to the first question from an audience member, saying he understands the "disappointment and anger" American citizens feel toward President Clinton, as he had these feelings as well.
Gore called Clinton his friend and said "I took an oath under the Constitution to serve my country through thick and thin, and I interpreted that oath to mean that I ought to try to provide some -- as much continuity and stability during the time that you're referring to as I possibly could."
After the forum, Gore elaborated on the difficult aspect of the vice presidency, saying he always needed to make sure he was "helping the team," and not promoting his own views.
But as a candidate Gore said he is taking a different approach.
"I'm done with that and that feels liberating," he said.
When asked what his biggest political mistake has been, Gore laughed and said he regretted taking too much credit for the creation of the Internet.
Polling and its effect
Experts had predicted it was critical Gore appear relaxed and spontaneous, as his campaign has taken a media drubbing for its burgeoning campaign costs and Bradley's lead in New Hampshire polls.
This week, a Quinnipiac College poll puts Bradley ahead of Gore, 47 percent to 39 percent in the nation's first primary state.
Gore hadn't been interested in debating Bradley until polls put him behind, and tonight he touted his recent challenge to Bradley for weekly debates as a way to improve campaigns.
Gore's campaign spokeswoman Kiki Moore told The Dartmouth last night she felt the vice president was showing his true character and sense of humor at the town hall meeting.
Gore's response about Clinton showed not a distancing from the president, but rather the vice president's sense of responsibility for his job in the government, she said.
Three current Cabinet secretaries -- Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson and Secretary of Education Richard Riley -- were on hand in the Alumni Hall press filing room to compliment Gore's performance after the debate.
Bradley campaign representatives were also heralding their candidate's performance.
"Bill Bradley's authenticity, integrity, character and conviction shined through about as naturally as sunshine. That's what we saw tonight and that's what we'll see every day in this campaign," Eric Hauser told The Dartmouth.
Dartmouth College government Professors Lynn Vavreck and Constantine Spiliotes both said last night that neither candidate emerged as the clear winner.
"They're two serious candidates" who committed no serious gaffes at the debate, Spiliotes said. "They shared the stage well."
Although calling both candidates "charming and eloquent," Vavreck did notice stylistic differences from the start, characterizing Bradley as more thoughtful and Gore as "patronizing."
While Bradley was talking "adult-to-adult," Vavreck said she thought Gore was "trying too hard to connect" with the forum and television audience.
